


Blackmail Material

by Micheoff



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Shenanigans, Feelings Realization, Jealousy, M/M, Morning After, Morning Routines, Sexuality Crisis, the nsfw related tags are in the notes now lads!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-05-20 15:44:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 64,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6014722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Micheoff/pseuds/Micheoff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“It was either Miles or Michael who sent me a video of them being like, “Hey, Barbara, wish you were here… and, uh, here’s this!” and then they just started kissing.”</em> </p><p>Michael and Miles end up kissing while (questionably) drunk and film it so they can send it to Barbara as a joke. Except no one is really laughing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [So Michael and Miles really did kiss](http://teammuchrespect.tumblr.com/post/138967931308/wait-who-did-michael-makeout-with). Maybe this _exact_ situation didn't happen, but they did kiss back in 2011. Let's all cry about it together.
> 
>  
> 
> **NSFW tags for ch. 2 and ch. 3:**  
>  _Frottage × Rimming × Intercrural Sex × Overstimulation × Crying During Sex × Praise Kink × Dirty Talk × Biting × Minor Asphyxiation Kink × Blow Jobs × Mentioned Pain Kink_

_**2016** _

They’re in the middle of filming for _Go!_ when Gavin spontaneously — and very much in classic Gavin what-if-your-legs-didn’t-know-they-were-legs fashion — asks Michael whether or not he’s been with a guy before. The video’s been dragging on for longer than necessary at this point and it’s obvious that Gavin is just trying to keep things interesting by doing that thing he tends to do where he asks invasive questions and actually expects an answer, no matter how ludicrous the question is.

Michael hates when Gavin does that, because if you don’t answer him he acts like you’re being the ridiculous one and yet he himself would never answer the questions either. And normally Michael wouldn’t even bother with giving a definite answer just to annoy Gavin, but it’s for the sake of saving the (already drawn-out and possibly boring at this point) content and content triumphs over everything else nine out of ten times.

So he finds himself shaking his head and asking, “Really, Gavin?” Then, after a long enough pause on his part that Gavin gets the chance to sputter about and push Michael further for an answer, he cuts Gavin off with a clear-cut, _“No.”_

Which isn’t exactly a lie, per se; it’s just an omission of some of the details, because Gavin didn’t specify what exactly “been with” would entail. “Been with” could mean a myriad of different things. For example: Has he ever dated a guy? No. Has he ever made out with or had sex with a guy? Well… the devil’s in the details.

So Michael tells Gavin that he’s never been with a guy before and when Gavin asks if he’d ever consider having sex with a guy he says, “Ha! Fat chance,” and then extrapolates on that by clarifying that, “I don’t think I’d like it in the ass. There’s not enough lubrication in the world to get me to try anal.”

And, okay, so maybe that’s a lie. Maybe Michael’s considered it before. Maybe at some point in his life it’s basically all he was thinking about for hours on end. But he thinks that lying is okay sometimes — like when it’s necessary. Anal is definitely something it’s okay to lie about when necessary. Especially when you’re being filmed. Or when you’re talking to Gavin who would literally never shut up about it afterwards and would probably have a million questions and a few grossed out looks like the guy hasn’t had three different girlfriends put fingers up his ass before.

And perhaps it’s extra especially okay to lie through your teeth when there’s the off chance that the guy who’s the reason for the misconstrued details attached to Gavin’s “been with” could see said filmed video and think twice about the past.

“How do you know that you’d be on the receiving end?” Gavin keeps going, not even pretending to be interested in winning this week’s _Go!_ when he could instead badger Michael. “Surely you’re a bit… angry now, aren’t you? A bit of a top?”

“Gavin, is this your way of asking if Michael will fuck you?” Geoff asks from across the room, microphone in hand while he moves restlessly from desk to desk, and just like that Gavin’s attention moves onto Geoff; apparently flipping the line of questioning onto Geoff who shrugs and makes a noncommittal noise like he’s not at liberty to say.

Michael can feel the weight from all the unwanted attention leave his chest the second he’s clear of any more probing questions about his sex life and there’s no longer an iPhone pointing at his face, filming the entire exchange between them candidly.

When Jack wins the episode of _Go!_ by drowning in Limbo, Worms, and Minecraft, Michael pushes his headset back over both ears and throws himself into his work, trying to get his mind off of things.

But Gavin just had to set the ball rolling, didn’t he?

So here’s the thing: Gavin? Not Michael’s keeper. Gavin doesn’t own the rights to Michael’s private life. Neither does any other asshole who wants to ask him personal questions that cross a line. Michael does not, in fact, owe it to anyone to divulge every single detail of his life to be poked and prodded at like he’s in some side-show attraction at a circus.

There are some things he considers sacrosanct and solely his. He doesn’t want to share certain aspects of his life with other people on a mass scale and it’s not wrong to want to keep those parts of his life to himself. He has every right to keep the things that make his knees go all watery and his heart trip to himself, because some things are too special to share. And, well, _okay_ , admittedly there’s maybe a _hint_ of greed mixed in with his reasoning for not telling anyone; maybe he wants to shelter every memory he has of this one aspect of himself because he doesn’t want to allow anyone else the opportunity to think about it when he hasn’t even allowed himself the chance to in years.

And it’s like this: The first time Michael ever made out with a guy, he was relatively drunk off his ass. Well, let’s be clear, the first time he made out with _Miles_ , he was drunk off his ass. He _has_ actually kissed other boys, because it’s hard not to when you spend most of your youth alternating between playing spin the bottle and throwing eggs at houses for no reason other than being a prick.

The thing about that, however, is that all those other kisses weren’t more than an experimental — and often embarrassed, rushed, and bad — press of lips and an accidental knocking of too-big-for-their-mouths-and-covered-in-metal-wiring-and-brackets front teeth. So Michael supposes that, if anything, Miles really is the first guy he’s ever made out with, because tongue is probably a necessity for earning the “made out” title.

So he made out with Miles. Like, full-on, _proper_ made out with the dude. It was ages ago, back when Michael still had some baby fat on his cheeks and his accent was horribly apparent, his voice loud and slurred with it, long before he started to train himself to enunciate things more. It was during his second month of working at Rooster Teeth officially, temporarily living with Jack at his apartment until he could get his own place, and he’d known Miles for a few months prior to the whole making out debacle at that point.

But it happened. On video. And then was sent to Barbara. Who still has it on her computer where it’ll remain forever in the void that is the Cloud.

Did he mention that? That there’s actual video evidence of his first proper kiss with a guy — Miles — and it’s not exactly as secret as he likes to pretend it is? Because, _yeah_. That’s also a thing.

It’s not as bad as it sounds, because they were both drunk and one of them or maybe both of them thought it’d be hilarious, so they just did it. It wasn’t like they did it for no real reason, because they did it to be funny and to make Barbara laugh or maybe it was just to show her how drunk she could’ve been if she had been there. They had another friend record it and then sent it to Barbara and it was funny. Michael remembers exactly how funny it was — he was almost crying, he was laughing so hard — when Barbara had sent back a bunch of question marks the next morning and then called Michael’s phone to ask — Michael remembers it verbatim because it’d been the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard — “What the hell, man? Michael, what the shit is this for?”

So they made out. It was a thing that happened. Michael sometimes forgets that it even happened, because it’s really not that big of a deal. If he’s dreamed about it more than once, well, no one else really has to know about it. If he sometimes finds himself remembering the way the tips of Miles’s fingers had slipped under the back of his shirt mid-kiss and traced up his spine until Michael pulled away on a shiver and a laugh, well, fuck if he’s ever going to tell anyone about that either.

Except… now he’s thinking about it again, because Gavin has no respect for Michael’s work flow or his general day-to-day ability to function without zoning out and thinking about the past. And now he’s stuck. Which is just typical of Gavin, isn’t it? To say one measly thing and leave Michael reeling for weeks afterwards.

 •••

_**2011** _

“Come on, come on, come on,” Miles rushes to get out right after they all stumble their way out of the strip club at two in the morning to pile into the car that Brandon had drove them the whole forty minutes over to the club in.

Ever the perfect designated driver, Brandon was also the only one to not drink and ends up behind the wheel before any of the other guys even manage to wobble their ways over to the car.

The rest of the group climbs in the back after Miles and when Miles hears someone clear their throat loudly he leans forward to look out the door to see Michael leaning against the side of the van (which is mostly because he’s swaying so much he needs the help to stay standing upright) with his arms crossed and his brows raised, staring at the lack of any free space left to sit.

“Ya’ guys just gonna leave me behind?” he asks, voice slurred more than Miles’s is since Miles isn’t drunk enough to stop forgetting how his tongue works correctly. There’s also that heavy Jersey accent, which has always been a trip and a half to decipher when Michael is drunk.

Miles laughs without meaning to and lifts up to move over everyone’s knees and get them to shift over until he’s sat in the spot at the end of the seat, right where Michael would’ve been occupying if there weren’t three other drunk adults sitting in the back seat.

“Come sit in m’lap and tell Santa Luna what you want for Christmas.”

Michael snorts loudly, sliding his shoulder off of the car and getting dirty residue from the unwashed car paneling on the sleeve of his t-shirt, and says, “Santa Luna’s gotta scoot over ‘cause there’s still Kyle and Chris that’s gotta get in.”

Miles leans out of the car and sure enough there’s Chris coming out of the bar halfway between carrying Kyle and holding him up. Miles hums, then starts laughing.

“Guys, guys, guys,” he says to the rest of the group, hands out for dramatic effect, laughing for no reason other than he’s drunk and everything is funny to him suddenly, “Kyle’s passed out, we should put him in th—”

Brandon cuts in, turning around in his seat to look at Miles seriously, “We’re not putting Kyle in the trunk, Miles. This isn’t The Hangover, man.”

“But, _dude_!” Miles groans. “Think of the RT Life! Someone get out your phone for a second angle, we’re doing this!”

And instead of Miles pulling his own phone out to use, he leans out of the car and reaches into Michael’s back pocket (“Hey, hands off!” Michael squawks indignantly, trying to slap his hands away) to get _his_ phone out and then hands it off to Kerry, who’s in the front passenger seat giggling and nodding along like he can’t wait to see this unfold, similarly buzzed.

“Thank you for graciously volunteering, Michael,” Miles tells him with a flourishing pseudo-bow that doesn’t really work that well while sitting inside of a car.

The same car Michael should _already be sitting in_ instead of having to stand out in the chilly parking lot.

“Miles, fuckin’, let me _innn_ ,” Michael whines, cutting in before anyone does anything that would end up as a lawsuit at any other company, punching Miles’s arm as best he can while trying to crawl into the car without falling. He makes to shove Miles over but then Miles is grabbing his hand and pulling him onto his lap, Michael sprawling on him messily and ending up sideways and leaning into Miles, all legs and flailing arms.

“Hey there, handsome.” Miles simpers for effect and Michael scowls at him at first, because he meant move over not put him on his lap, but then he’s laughing too and turning to look at the phone in Kerry’s hands.

“Oh my god, we’ve gotta send Barbara this.”

Brandon groans, resting his head on the steering wheel in a less than gentle way. “Guys, _please_ , can we just go?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Miles says, waving a dismissive hand in Brandon’s general direction, “the man could be onto something here, Brandon, let’s hear him out! Are we not supposed to be amicable hosts for the new guy? What’s on your mind, Rage Quit Guy.”

“Shut the fuck _up_ ,” Michael tells him, dragging out the words in a bratty manner. “Don’t fuckin’ call me that, you prick. And you were still an intern just a few months ago, too.”

“Michael,” Miles corrects himself quickly, bringing his hands up to Michael’s sides so he can move him over some on his lap until Michael’s back is mostly against Miles’s chest and he’s shifted over on Miles’s thighs, the weight of him only slightly uncomfortable and starting to dig into Miles’s leg.

Michael’s about to say they should send her something to show what she’s missing out on, but then Chris is standing in the open door and telling everyone to scoot over, pointing at Seb and telling him to sit on Jordan’s lap or they won’t be able to all fit. So then Miles has to scoot into the middle to accommodate everyone (which, considering Miles’s size, was a difficult feat to accomplish without someone being squished, but they did it miraculously) and Michael awkwardly lifts up until they’re both in the middle and then he’s back on Miles’s lap, now sat between Seb and Jordan and Chris and Kyle.

Brandon lets out a sigh of relief when the doors close and starts the car, pulling onto the road, probably glad that no one ended up stuffed in the trunk. Kerry moves to hand the phone ( _Michael’s_ phone, damn it) back to Miles but Miles shakes his head, turning to Michael with one hand on Michael’s knee and the other awkwardly stuffed between his leg and Chris’s.

“Okay, what’re we sending Babs?”

Michael opens his eyes from where he must’ve had them closed and shrugs sluggishly, the alcohol catching up with him and making him slow down after having been so buzzed and energetic while in the club. “Don’t know, just thought we should show her all the fun she’s missed out on, ‘s’all.”

Miles nods sagely, patting Michael’s knee. “I agree, I agree. She was supposed to be here before she bailed. But what do we send, that’s the real question...”

The car goes quiet, everyone thinking about what would make Barbara wish she would’ve showed up instead of cancelling via text message at the last second. The only real noise is Brandon muttering under his breath, “Please nothing illegal or dangerous, guys, _please_ ,” with his fingers crossed on the steering wheel.

Michael shifts to try and face towards Kerry and manages to accidentally elbow Miles in the stomach in the process. He laughs under his breath and pats Miles’s stomach apologetically, mumbling a quiet, “S’cuse me. I hit your belly there a second ago.”

Miles shakes his head and bats Michael’s hand away, not bothering with a response.

“Oh, dude,” Kerry pipes up, “you guys should, like, kiss each other.”

“Was that just a general suggestion or…?” Chris asks at the same time Miles starts laughing and has to bury his face in Michael’s shoulder to quiet down, rubbing his face back and forth, shaking his head.

“ _Dude_ ,” Michael snorts, turning to look at Kerry with a shit-eating grin, feeling the smile adorning Miles’s face against his shoulder. “You got somethin’ to tell us here, Kerrian?”

“I knew we should’ve went to an all guys club,” Chris admits mournfully, making Jordan laugh.

“No, no, not like that! Just like, c’mon. Being fake gay is funny, right? And Barbara wouldn’t know what to do,” Kerry clarifies, but even he’s laughing at the suggestion, as if it’s just a huge joke. “And she’d be all...” He makes a twisted up face and takes on a terrible Canadian accent that sounds more Australian than anything, saying, “‘ _What’s this all about now, eh?_ ’”

“Please don’t start making out in my car,” Brandon whines, catching Michael’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.

Michael shrugs only half apologetically and doesn’t look away, face brightening. It would make Barbara laugh a lot and any idea sounds great while drunk, so.

“ _Guys_ ,” Brandon pleads desperately.

Miles removes himself from Michael’s shoulder and says, “I think Brandon wants us to kiss, Michael.”

“I think you mean _Kerry_ wants us to kiss.”

“Hey, I’m not peer pressuring anyone here, but I’m just saying. Like. I’ve got the video on and I could press record any time you guys are ready.”

“When did Kerry become a porn director?” Seb asks while rolling down the window, the car hot with all of the people stuffed inside of it.

“I’m not, I’m like the fluffer. I’m fluffing them up.”

“‘ _I’m the fluffer,_ ’” Miles repeats, giggling under his breath.

Michael purses his lips. It’s not a bad idea and it _would_ be pretty fucking funny. Not like stuffing-Kyle-in-the-trunk-until-he-wakes-up funny, but definitely hilarious. Especially because they’re in a moving car packed with people and Kyle is passed out and drooling on Chris’s shoulder next to them. Plus pretty much everything is funny to him right now, so why not? Not like it’s serious or anything. Just a quick peck and then they’re done.

“Okay,” he says decidedly. “Okay, yeah. I’ll do it. I’ve done worse anyway.”

“Well you are from New Jersey,” Kerry agrees. “You’ve probably killed someone before.”

“I take offense to that,” Miles says, “don’t compare kissing me to killing a guy, I’m a total catch. But I’m down, not like I haven’t kissed a guy before or anything.” He shrugs. “And it‘s not like we have to use tongue either.”

Michael’s heart thumps funnily at that, but he’s not going to analyze it if he doesn’t have to. Still, the words, _‘not like I haven’t kissed a guy before,’_ play in his head in a loop after that. He’s pretty sure every guy’s kissed another guy before at least once in a game of spin the bottle, but Michael has a feeling Miles means he’s done it recently and not just when he was younger.

“Dude. Okay, I want the deets on that kiss thing later—” Kerry makes a V shape with his fingers and points them towards his eyes, then Miles’s eyes, and then back again “—but tongue is, like, a must. You’ve gotta have lots of it for it to be funny.”

“Yeah, Miles, believe in yourself,” Chris encourages, not even trying to pretend like he’s not having a blast with this. He lightly knocks his closed hand against Miles’s arm for effect.

Brandon repeatedly hits his head back on his headrest in a show of contempt.

“Guys, come on, please, let’s just put the cameras away. You’re all drunk.”

“So, what, like it’s middle school all over again and I’m just slobbering all over some poor girl’s mouth? Just, like, _way_ too much tongue?” Miles asks, everyone ignoring Brandon’s protests.

Michael scrunches up his nose in disgust, brain catching up with the conversation now. “Hey, I don’t want some shitty kiss that’s disgusting. I’m not about to be slobbered all over like I’m some dog bone.”

“Haha, ‘ _bone_ ,’” Jordan snickers to himself childishly. Seb laughs quietly with him and Michael rolls his eyes, turning back to Kerry when he starts talking again.

“Fine,” Kerry sighs exasperatedly, “but you’ve got to use at least a little tongue, otherwise it’s not funny and I’m just filming two guys making out.”

“Hey, man, I think it’s pretty funny either way,” Miles point out.

Chris nods along. “Fake gay is funny.”

“What about real gay?” Brandon asks, looking back at everyone while at a stop sign. “Because you know what this sounds like, guys? Real gay. Really, _really_ real gay. _Super_ real gay. Doesn’t anybody else feel like this is really gay?”

Chris makes a face. “That sounds pretty homophobic, dude.”

“Oh my god.” Brandon turns away from Chris and starts driving again. “Forget I even said anything. Actually, just forget I’m here. I-I can’t believe I’m trying to reason with drunk people.”

Chris shrugs completely unbothered and asks, “What should you guys say? Or should Kerry just record the kiss and nothing else?”

“Oh, dude,” Michael purses his lips and nods, “I’ve got this. I know what I’m gonna say.”

“Nice, so should I press record now?”

“Yeah, yeah, hold on.” Michael lifts up and turns around to straddle Miles, but angles himself slightly to the side so Kerry can film the kiss over his headrest without being blocked. “You ready?” he asks Miles, keeping his hands in his lap for now.

“Uh, yeah, man. Ready when you are,” Miles says, not sounding entirely confident, but not saying no either. Probably just a bit nervous, which Michael thinks he’d be feeling a little too if this were supposed to be a real kiss, but it’s just a joke and he never backs down from something after agreeing. He’s ready.

Michael puts his hands on Miles’s shoulders and Miles giggles a little nervously, tentatively placing his hands on Michael’s hips in return. Michael smiles reassuringly at him then, something small and private and probably a little too open, but he’s drunk enough to not really care about it.

“Barb’s not gonna know what hit her,” he tells Miles in what he hopes sounds like a comforting voice, and then he turns to Kerry and says, “Press record now, Kerry,” while he takes off his glasses and hands them to Chris for temporary safekeeping.

Kerry puts his thumb out when the recording starts to give Michael the go ahead and he knows exactly what he wants to say, so without a beat he smiles wide at the phone’s camera and pretends like he’s talking directly to Barbara.

“Hey, Barbara. You’re not here, but we’re having a shitload of fun anyway. Strip club was _so_ cash. Wish you were here, though—” a lick of his lips “—and, uh, here’s this!”

And then Michael turns to Miles, moves one hand up to the back of Miles’s neck while the other moves to hold Miles’s jaw, maneuvering his head the way Michael needs it and keeping Miles still so he can lean over to press his lips to Miles’s, his eyes closing and his mouth already wet.

But it’s wrong. Something is wrong, definitely.

Admittedly, the height difference probably should have been taken into account first, because Michael hasn’t even gotten the chance to open his mouth or anything and he already knows the angle isn’t right. He’s in Miles’s lap but he’s still the same height as Miles when he needs Miles’s head to be tilted back for better access.

He pulls back just far enough so that he can open his eyes, eyelashes fluttering faintly, their foreheads touching and noses bumping, and whispers against Miles’s mouth, lips brushing, “Lift me up some, please,” trying not to let the phone’s microphone or anyone else pick it up, hyper aware of everyone around him and Miles.

Miles doesn’t even bother opening his eyes, but he does make some kind of soft dying animal noise, something that’s caught between a nervous laugh and a choke, ineffably vulnerable. His grip tightens on Michael’s hips before he lifts Michael up until the crown of his head almost hits the car’s slightly sagging headliner and then keeps him there, seemingly effortless even while drunk.

With his feet hanging off of the seat and now almost fully on his knees, Michael lowers his eyes until they’re almost completely closed and presses his lips to Miles’s again, this time without straining his neck at an odd angle. Feeling the slight beard tickle against his chin and palm and the soft but decidedly chapped feel of Miles’s lips against his own, he watches the way Miles’s cheeks stain pink when he moves the hand from Miles’s jaw to the back of his head, getting a good grip on his hair and tugging, just enough pressure to get Miles to tilt his head up more, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he bares his neck for Michael.

Miles makes that same noise then, that choked out nervous giggle he does, his mouth opening with it, and Michael closes his eyes tightly and presses into Miles as best as he can. Knowing an opening when he sees it, he bites into Miles’s bottom lip gently in warning before slipping his tongue in.

And it’s supposed to be a joke, right? It’s supposed to be funny. Michael knows that it sure seemed like a funny idea before when everyone was laughing about it. A good ha-ha-look-at-this-Barbara shock value sort of thing. It really did.

But here’s the thing: as Michael kisses Miles while halfway straddling his hips, hand on his neck and in his hair, he’s starting to feel like this is a lot heavier than it should be and as far as possible from being a joke. Like maybe no one is laughing anymore. Like maybe his skin is burning everywhere he’s pressed against Miles and his whole body is curved towards Miles like a flower bends toward the sun, so natural for him to parenthesis himself around Miles.

And the way Miles seemingly comes to life when Michael opens his mouth up more for him is nothing to joke about. Because Miles is pressing back into him then, suddenly straining forward and somewhat knocking Michael back with it, except he’s still holding Michael up with the weight of his hands on him, clutching tightly at Michael’s hips, and instead of tumbling and ending up with a concussion Miles keeps him steady and drags him closer. With the movement of his body rushing into Michael’s, a hand slips upwards from Michael’s hip until it’s under his shirt, splayed right there on his lower back to keep him from getting too far or falling backwards, and Michael swears he loses all sense of balance after that — which isn’t technically saying much considering the fact that he’s supposed to be drunk, but hell if he isn’t feeling really fucking unnervingly sober right now.

Why did he think this would be a good idea?

He tries to give back as much as he gets after that, tries remembering that he’s supposed be making this look comical, but _Jesus Christ, who taught Miles how to kiss?_ Who did this? Because it’s devastating. Fuck, it’s life ruining. Michael is never going to be kissed like this ever again and it’s supposed to be a _joke_.

He’s ruined already, face flushed and chin and cheeks sensitive from the burn of Miles’s beard, skin so soft in comparison to the rough texture, and he knows his chest and neck are probably tinged just as red as his face. His pulse is racing and he feels it down to his bones when Miles digs his fingers into his hip, thumb pressing just above the waist of his jeans and threatening to slip under at any second.

He makes a small noise in the back of his throat, sounding high and strung-out, and he tries so hard not to let it out, but he can’t stop it without biting his own tongue, which is currently in Miles’s mouth, so... yeah, that’s a no go. And then he’s embarrassed and feels sort of like burying his head in sand, because Miles had to have heard it. He had to, because maybe it was shared between their mouths, but it wasn’t nearly as quiet as he probably thinks it was.

And now Miles probably feels weirded out and will push him away and laugh at him and _Christ_ there are still people watching them. There is someone _filming_ them. And he tells himself that he’ll pull away first so Miles won’t get the chance to do it himself and there won’t be any weird looks and he’ll play it all off by deflecting any questions and everything will be okay and wow he’s maybe panicking a little and he should probably just breathe which he can’t really do if he’s kissing Miles so yeah he should really stop doing that.

Michael goes to pull back, ready to awkwardly laugh things off, but he only makes it far enough that he can pant against Miles’s open mouth before Miles lets go of his hip and hooks a hand around the nape of his neck, index finger and thumb twisting around a loose curl. And then he’s being held still by the hand on his neck as Miles raises up without even bothering to open his eyes, blindly chasing the taste of Michael’s lips. And he feels close to collapsing into dust because Miles is _still kissing him_ like he didn’t just keen high in the back of his throat because Miles dug his fingers into his skin.

You don’t keep kissing a guy when you’re weirded out by him, right?

He’s helpless to do anything but kiss back as best as he can while trying to breathe through his nose. He doesn’t think he could do anything else but this anyway. He’s pretty sure he’s going to die kissing Miles. He doesn’t even remember any moment of his life that didn’t revolve around the way Miles licks at the roof of his mouth and makes his whole body shiver, grip tightening in Miles’s hair in a way that must hurt but that Miles doesn’t seem to mind.

Miles pulls back slightly, lightly scraping his beard over Michael’s kiss-bitten and swollen lips, and Michael drops his forehead to Miles’s, feeling so strung-out and worn down that he thinks he’s going to sleep for the next ten years, jaw already so tired and mouth wet and red.

Michael wants to say something. Probably something about how stuffy it is in the car and that he’s pretty sure if Miles touches his thighs right now he might die. Maybe he’d remind Miles that they’re in a car with six other people and should probably get off of each other because they’ve definitely been kissing for a while now. But then there’s Miles.

Miles who is flushed from his cheeks to his ears, mouth so slick and red and open that Michael could cry, with his fingers curled into Michael’s hair and clinging to him, with his hand still pressed under Michael’s shirt and now rubbing over Michael’s lower back, with hair that looks like it’s been moussed up by Michael’s hands, with eyes that are heavy-lidded and staring at nowhere but Michael’s mouth.

And okay. So maybe Michael wants to keep kissing. Maybe he never wants to stop kissing. Maybe he’s a little tense everywhere and maybe he knows trying to move or turn around would be pretty awkward with his current… ahem… pants situation. And maybe, just maybe, Michael might realize that there’s something more to this than Miles being a really good kisser. Maybe he might like dudes. Maybe he might like _Miles_.

Which, like, is probably not the kind of thing you want to realize while being filmed by your friend while in the lap of another friend while also supporting a pretty impressive hard-on, but. Well. Maybe this is what Michael’s life just happens to be now.

“Uh, what did I just wake up to?”

Michael jumps, turning his head to see that Kyle is now staring at them with wide eyes, mouth dropped open and eyebrows raised in drunken confusion. The entire car feels tense and stuffy and he can see Chris looking flushed and embarrassed, turned to look out of the car window and clearly trying to find a way to remove himself from this entire situation. A quick glance around shows everyone else also in a state of forced and uncomfortable detachment, looking at their hands or at literally anything other than Michael and Miles.

Jesus fucking Christ. He’s got a boner in front of six different people and then there’s Miles who can definitely feel it pressing against his upper stomach. Like, there’s no way he can’t, because his dick is back with a vengeance all pressed up against Miles’s stomach and dampening his own boxers. This is a serious mineralogical find. Seriously, Michael is pretty sure that his dick is harder than diamonds right now. Like, kind of painfully hard in the sense that every slight jump of Miles’s stomach muscles kind of makes him want to die.

Michael, ever the most eloquent and verbose person in the room (or, in this situation, in the car), makes a noise akin to something like an “eep” and then sputters without really saying anything, probably sounding more like a screaming frog than a person. His cheeks burn so hot that he thinks he might actually cry if he can’t find some way to disappear from the car. Or the continent. Or, while he’s at it, maybe he should become the first person on the sun. Yeah. That might make him feel less horrified and humiliated.

And then, as if by some miracle, a higher form of being out there in the universe takes pity on him and breaks the uncomfortable silence in the form of no one other than his current make out partner.

Miles bursts out laughing, dropping his forehead to Michael’s collarbone and cackling so hard that his whole body shakes with it against Michael’s. And then the entire car explodes with laughter as well, Miles’s obnoxiously loud laugh contagious and dissipating any bit of tension.

“Oh my god, man you guys really went at it. I thought I was two seconds away from really becoming a porn director,” Kerry laughs, pointing the phone’s camera to Kyle’s still squinting and confused face before turning it to show everyone else laughing.

“Like, wow, guys, that was definitely a lot of tongue. I couldn’t have asked for more.” Kerry puts the phone down into the center console, seemingly done filming, and wipes his brow dramatically. “I mean, is it hot in here or is it just me?”

Chris rolls his window down for effect and agrees, “Definitely not just you.”

“I think we can all strike seeing two guys make out off of our bucket lists now,” Jordan suggests, only half jokingly.

Brandon grumbles something from the front about his car being used as sexual relief, saying he’s never agreeing to take them out to a strip club ever again, and suddenly everyone’s attention is focused on him, no longer paying any attention to Michael and Miles. Michael sighs in relief, not having been laughing like everyone else and just kind of feebly smiling along.

Michael slowly lets go of Miles and drops his hands to his shoulders instead, muttering a quiet, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Miles asks back, equally as quiet and sounding funny, voice strained and muffled against Michael’s shirt.

“For laughing. For not, like, making me have to say something or try and explain everything to Kyle. Thanks.”

“Yeah, well… I do what I can.”

Michael smiles into Miles’s hair, Miles’s face still buried in Michael’s shoulder and his hands now back at Michael’s hips, which is definitely more safe than where they were. Michael moves to lower himself down, Miles no longer needing to hold him up, and the moment he settles back down in Miles’s lap he realizes that maybe he should have stayed where he was before.

“Okay,” Miles says into the hollow of Michael’s throat, voice cracking and sounding a little pained. He clears his throat and cages Michael’s waist with his hands, holding him completely still. “So maybe that was a little real gay.”

All right, so Miles has a hard-on. His dick is definitely creating a harsh line in his jeans and Michael can feel it under him. That’s fine. Michael can handle this. Sometimes guys get hard when kissing their friends. That’s totally normal. And, hey, it’s not like Miles is the only one in the same predicament here. Michael can be totally rational about this.

As a rational and mature person he says reasonably, “Sorry, I’ll move off, don’t worry about it,” but instead it somehow ends up coming out of his mouth as, “Did I get you hard?”

Two thoughts run through his head the second the words tumble out of his mouth:

The first thought is that he’s going to call Geoff the second he’s off of Miles’s lap and quit. He can no longer work at Rooster Teeth. It’s over. Rage Quit was fucking with his blood pressure anyway, it’s not really worth it. Besides, he can always continue his job as an electrician back in New Jersey. He was only gone for two months which isn’t too big of a deal and he can make it back on a flight tomorrow if he needs to. Which he does. He really needs to get out of Texas.

The second thought is that if he ever finds it in himself to get hard after this, he’s never going to stop thinking about the way Miles whimpers into his neck at the words, “Did I get you hard?” He is going to die and his last words are going to be, “At least I heard Miles make that noise.” He will always have that.

Miles moves to wrap his arms around Michael’s waist instead of doing what Michael thought he would, which would be throwing him off. He lifts Michael back up like before, but that only makes things worse because now his dick is back to being flush against Miles’s stomach and Michael’s cheeks are never going to be anything other than red ever again.

What did he do in life to deserve this torture?

Miles, seemingly less horrified of the verbal vomit that seems to fall out of Michael’s mouth and the very obviously present erection against his stomach that’s definitely not his own, thumps his forehead against Michael’s chest.

“Sorry. Just. Don’t move, please,” Miles pleads, sounding mortally wounded and raw.

Michael surreptitiously peaks out of the corners of his eyes to check if anyone else is paying attention. No one is looking at them, or, in fact, is awake. Obviously Brandon must still be driving, but he hears music playing and takes a wild guess that Brandon turned it up to give them privacy or probably just to drown them out.

Wrapping his arms around Miles’s neck, resting his chin on Miles’s head, and stilling obediently, Michael whispers back, “Okay.”

So he doesn’t move the rest of the car ride.

He grits his teeth at every bump in the road that rubs his dick against Miles’s stomach, but he doesn’t move even an inch, even when he feels like he’s being pulled in all different directions. He has to will himself away from jerking his hips forward for relief, counting imaginary sheep in his head and trying to think of literally anything else other than the way Miles hasn’t really stopped panting since they kissed, even when it’s been so long afterwards. Which is torture, because the collar of Michael’s shirt has dipped down and Miles has just been wetly panting against the skin of his chest for minutes now, and Michael honestly doesn’t see his god damn dick calming down at all in the foreseeable future unless he’s in some old folks home fifty miles away from Miles and playing Monopoly or something.

But Michael keeps quiet too, only ever making the softest whimpers when Miles will do something even slightly stimulating like rub his nose across the hollow of Michael’s neck or swipe his thumb back and forth over his side. But every part of his body feels like an erogenous zone when Miles is the one touching him, so it’s kind of hard to hold off on being silent, but he manages.

When hell itself is finally over, Brandon parking the car in front of the apartment building Michael is staying at and announcing that they’re at their first stop of seven, Michael pulls away and Miles lets him, hands falling away easily and eyes low when he nods to Michael.

For an awkward minute Michael has to pretend like the past forty minutes haven’t happened, saying his stilted goodbyes to Miles and Brandon, grabbing his glasses carefully from Chris’s shirt pocket and putting them on, taking his phone from the center console and sliding it into his pocket, and then accidentally waking Jordan and Seb from where they were passed out when he climbs out of their side of the car. He apologizes and then closes the door behind himself, penguin shuffling over to the stairwell of his apartment and taking the time to wave Brandon off, hyper aware of the fact that Miles is definitely watching him from inside the car.

It’s only when he’s inside his apartment that he actually lets everything sink in, standing in the middle of his small bathroom and staring at his wet face in the mirror, having splashed cold water on his heated cheeks for relief.

“ _Fuck_.”

It’s a good summation of everything, he thinks. He’s not going to be able to look Miles in the face for months after this. But, well… maybe he’s not going to quit like he said he would.

After all, Miles kissed him back in the first place.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! There's now a second part of this. Someone was sick and my immediate response was, "Oh, okay, cool... I'll write some porn to make you feel better if you want?" And then I did, except it somehow ended up as 20k... so... there's that.
> 
> **NSFW tags for this chapter:**  
>  _Frottage × Rimming × Intercrural Sex × Overstimulation × Crying During Sex × Praise Kink × Dirty Talk × Biting × Minor Asphyxiation Kink × Blow Jobs_

_**2016** _

So let’s set the record straight: Michael Jones is a lying liar who lies and he often — and specifically in this case — does it to Gavin’s face. Because, yes, he maybe has in fact had sex with a guy already. Like, no need to think on it or consider it, because it has actually already happened. He’s banged a dude. Singular. One dude. One dude who was his _coworker_. One dude who just so happened to be _Miles_. Yeah, he fucked himself over that bad.

In his defense, though, it started out relatively safe for work and was just two guys who were still a little confused and turned on by a pretty fucking great kiss standing around awkwardly kicking up dust. Really, Miles just wanted to talk about what had just happened between them for peace of mind before going into work the next Monday and Michael just wanted to get Miles out so he could deal with the problem of his dick only seeming to get even worse when Miles showed up again.

And then there was maybe some touching. But, to be fair, it wasn’t like it was sexual touching.

Okay, well… until it almost immediately was.

But not in a super gay way!

Michael will swear that he didn’t mean to start anything, but then there was Miles standing there in front of him and all of this knowledge about how Miles _sounded_ and… yeah… so maybe it was in a super gay way, but it wasn’t like either of them meant for it to be like that at first.

But somehow they ended up kissing and, well, one thing lead to another as it often does and there were hands on him and he was panting and who could blame him for what was happening, really? When you’re presented with the opportunity to make out with someone who’s objectively attractive, then he thinks it’s okay to forget reason at the door and take that opportunity.

Like, okay, so _maybe_ it was irresponsible — all things considered, what with being friends and also the fact that they work at the same company — but his dick never would have forgiven him had he blue-balled himself by passing the opportunity by.

Because when Miles had knocked on his door it, face flushed and so obviously nervous, it took only a few minutes for Michael to decide that this was happening. He was a hundred percent about to bang a dude. Job and slight gay panic be damned.

•••

_**2011** _

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes since he left Brandon’s car and subsequently Miles when he hears the knock on the door. He’s in the middle of patting his face dry with his shirt while he stands in his bedroom, glasses and phone laid out on his desk, shoes kicked off at his dresser, when the knock comes a second time, a little bit louder now.

He contemplates ignoring it at first, but then he’s reminded of the fact that Jack is asleep in his room and he figures it’d be best to deal with whoever it is so he doesn’t wake up.

Which means he only has enough time to quickly down half a bottle of water to try and force further sobriety on himself (even though he’s starting to realize that nothing is more sobering than a boner and the embarrassing reminder that he’ll have to interact with all of the people who just saw him make out with a guy on the following Monday) before he has to answer it.

Which is definitely _not_ something Michael wants to do right about now, what with his dick still kicking up a storm in his pants and all. And even despite the fact that he stands in front of the door for at least ten seconds thinking about horrifying clowns and Steve Buscemi to try and get it to go down, it seems like Miles has effectively put him in a state of constant arousal and not even the dick repellent that is the great Steve Buscemi can get it to lessen. Which is just great. Really. It’s fan-fucking-tastic.

So, in the meantime, he psychs himself up to answer the door after tucking his dick into the waistband of his jeans and hopes like hell that it isn’t too obvious that he’s got a hard-on that just won’t quit as he opens the door.

Which. Okay, it’s three in the morning, right? So he has no idea why he’s shocked by the fact that Miles is standing there, because who else would it be? But you can’t really blame him, because the cause of his hard-on is standing right there in front of him wringing his hands together over his rumpled shirt, face flushed and breathing heavily.

And it’s got to be some kind of hallucination caused by all of the blood focused solely on his own dick, because there’s no way Miles is standing there. No fucking way. Why would he come back?

Michael self consciously steps closer to the opened door, trying to press himself against it sideways to keep Miles from noticing his embarrassingly insistent boner. As if it makes any difference now; like Miles couldn’t _feel_ it the whole time in the car, pressed too close to his stomach and twitching every time Miles so much as breathed wrong against his throat.

Jesus Christ, he’s never going to live this down.

“So, funny story, right?” Miles starts, voice frazzled as he ducks his head and rubs at the back of his neck. “My apartment is maybe being fumigated right now and I only just remembered and I thought, hey, that Rage Quit guy is pretty swell, maybe he’d let me stay at his place for the night.” Miles looks up through his lashes and then — faced with Michael’s forced neutral expression (though he himself expects that it probably looked more pained that neutral) — drops his hand back to his side and sighs. “No? Nothing? Man… I guess I should’ve majored in theater instead, huh? That’d probably make this more convincing.”

“Make what more convincing?” Michael asks, mind fuzzy because he can’t look away from the shadows that are playing across the soft curves of Miles’s cheeks from under the harsh light above the apartment door. And even then, even with that obvious distraction at the forefront of his mind, there’s still the fact that Michael was pressed up against that, against Miles, just a few minutes ago.

He knows what Miles feels like now. How he sounds when he whines, how he kisses, what makes him tense. And he was pressing everywhere against Miles, his forehead against Miles’s, his tongue in Miles’s mouth, his hands in Miles’s hair, his hard-on pressed against the tense muscles of Miles’s stomach. And here’s the kicker: Miles was pressing back even further, almost climbing over Michael with how desperate he was for more of what Michael was giving him.

With all of that on his mind, all of this information and those sensory memories overloading his brain the longer he looks at Miles, it’s a wonder he’s even managed to keep himself standing there without begging for Miles to kiss him.

God, he wants Miles to kiss him again.

“I just thought… well, I don’t really know what I thought. I’m probably being really impulsive right now. I’m supposed to be working on that, but what’re you gonna do, you know? I’m here anyway. But I’m not reading this wrong, right? I mean, my bad if I am, I’ll just…” Miles looks around in bewilderment, as if he’s lost at sea, “sit out here? I kind of already watched Brandon drive away, but, man, no worries — all I’ll need is a bindle and I’ll hitchhike my way home. Just gotta find me a stick first, could probably just tie my shirt around the end of it and—”

Miles stops himself abruptly with that same nervous laugh he had in the car — the one right before they kissed, Michael in his lap and Miles’s warm hands on his hips — and Michael’s dick has some type of Pavlovian response to it, leaking just a little against his stomach and throbbing as if Miles has started feeling him up all over again.

Which is just fucking great, because now Michael can feel his face heating and the tacky precome cooling against his waistband and he has to pause for a minute because, _god fucking damn it, Steve Buscemi, Steve Buscemi, Steve Buscemi, Steve Buscemi…_

“I’m totally rambling right now, aren’t I?”

Michael smiles as convincingly as he can, hoping that it doesn’t look nearly as forced as it feels or scream something like _‘I’m hard as a rock right now and it’s all your fault,’_ and nods, not quite trusting his voice.

“Right… so I’m just going to come out and say it then, right?” Miles asks rhetorically, nodding to himself. “That’s the mature thing to do here.”

Michael inclines his head in agreement as a formality, but he’d have to know what Miles was talking about to be able to add any input. Not that Michael would really be able to focus on deciphering anything Miles is saying right about now, because his attention has graduated from the shadows on Miles’s cheeks to the rouged up skin below the dip of Miles’s clavicle, the top two buttons of his shirt undone and leaving him far more exposed than Michael is prepared to deal with right now.

Seriously, how is it that even Miles’s chest hair is doing it for him? What has his life come to?

“Okay that’s good… yeah. Right. Uh.”

Miles stands in the threshold of the door for a beat, not quite saying anything despite opening his mouth a multitude of times before snapping it closed before anything manages to peel out.

Then, as if he’s only just woken up from a dizzy spell, he asks suddenly, “Sorry, could I come in?”

Michael wants to say no. Not because of Miles or anything, but because he honestly doesn’t trust himself not to end up asking Miles if it’d be okay to kiss him if he’s exposed to him any longer, and especially not if Miles is inside with him. But he finds himself nodding anyway, stepping back and opening the door wide for Miles as he thanks him and passes through.

Miles looks around curiously at first, his first time ever being inside of Michael’s apartment (and Jack’s as well — Jack who happens to be sleeping in his room and definitely wouldn’t appreciate it if he woke up during the night to find Michael pressing Miles against the door and kissing down his neck like Michael really, _really_ wants to), before he turns to Michael with a determined look on his face.

“Okay, feel free to tell me to fuck off, but…” Miles tapers off, seeming to lose all of the sudden momentum he just built up the second Michael looks back at him. “Uh.”

“Yeah?” Michael prompts, and his voice thankfully doesn't crack.

“Yeah. Right, okay. So, like, we have to see each other on Monday, y’know? After, uh, all this happened.”

Michael looks away at the obvious emphatic tone to Miles’s voice when he says ‘all this.’ Like just those two words are enough to sum up and convey the massive fucking elephant in the room that is _‘Oh, hey, remember how not even twenty minutes ago you were in my lap and felt how hard I was while we were making out in front of all of our friends?’_

Yeah, Michael doesn’t have to be a genius to figure out what Miles is talking about.

“And I just wanted to, like, talk? Maybe? Because, bro, I am the _worst_ at awkward silences and I will not shut up until it’s addressed. Kind of like right now, actually. Like… you still know what words are, right? I didn’t bite your tongue off while we were, uh… kissing or anything?”

And, _Christ_ , Miles was just going to come right out and say it, then, wasn’t he? He wasn’t even going to let Michael pretend like he didn’t know what he was talking about. As if Michael needed the freaking reminder when his dick was still there being an asshole and not going down — if anything it’d only become more insistent now that Miles had showed up again looking like… well, looking like Miles only more debauched and obscene with his still flushed cheeks and mussed up hair.

And, god, Michael did that. He’s the reason why Miles looks properly sated after a good fuck, lips still puffy and raw from Michael’s teeth, a red mark at the soft spot under his ear that Michael swears he doesn’t remember doing but that can only be from him, that soft flutter of his eyelashes when he had looked at Michael after Michael kissed him coming back at Michael’s prolonged silence.

It’s at that exact moment that Michael decides Miles needs to leave immediately before he does something stupid like kiss him again. He needs to deal with the pressing matter of his hard and seemingly undeterred boner quickly, and unless he rudely forces Miles out of the apartment he doesn’t necessarily know how exactly he’s going to handle this.

“Hey, Michael, you there?” Miles asks in concern, stepping close enough to Michael to — before Michael can say anything edgewise — rest a hand on the curve of Michael’s neck, right where his neck and shoulder meet, his thumb lightly pressed just under the hinge of his jaw.

And it’s almost like the entire moment passes Michael by in slow motion; he watches Miles move closer as if he’s a third person in the room, far removed from what’s happening at first until he feels the warmth of Miles’s hand against his neck and the slight catch of Miles’s thumbnail against the ridge of his jaw. And then it’s a rush, time seeming to snap itself back into place like a rubber band against the skin of his wrist as Michael’s pulse jumps funnily and he reacts with an urgency he didn’t mean for.

Michael knows the instant that it happens that he’s fucked up, his entire chest heaving with the sudden surge of breath he takes in after all the air in his lungs leaves him in one go, and his feet carry him closer until Miles — eyes widening and mouth opening on a question he doesn’t get the chance to ask — ends up hitting his back against the wall as Michael crowds in until there’s virtually no room between them and Miles has to dip his chin down to look at him.

“Oh thank god,” Miles utters in reverence, voice a relieved wonder as Michael grabs at the wrist of his hand and forces pressure until Miles gets the hint and presses his thumb up under his chin to get Michael’s head to tip back.

The fingers around Michael’s neck curl until they bite into his skin as Miles pulls, so similar to how he did in the car, until Michael is almost up on the tips of his toes and meets Miles halfway as he bends down.

And, Jesus, _this_.

This too easy slip of his lips against Miles’s, a burning need to open Miles’s mouth up with his own compelling him to lick at Miles’s bottom lip and get it as slick as he can before biting down, nowhere near soft and kind. This hitch of Michael’s shoulder up when Miles nudges his nose against his and gets him to open his own mouth on a vulnerable gasp, already so desperate for it that he’s aching. This intense desire that scorches his bones when Miles pushes into him, hands coming up to fit along his jaw, thumbs pressed at the small divots of Michael’s dimples, and takes advantage of Michael’s open mouth to kiss him deeper, filthier, tongue so much hotter than the rest of him, of Michael, that Michael feels like he’s touching the sun.

And _this_.  _This, this, this, and this_.

Michael can’t fucking breathe because of all of it, because of everything Miles is doing to him, and it’s so much better than the car. God, Michael can’t believe how much better it is, because it seemed impossible to top, but Miles is insatiable; he’s pressing and pressing until Michael has no choice but to stumble back at the force of Miles’s need, Miles following after him like a starving dog to a mouthwatering bone.

His face is still framed by Miles’s hands that hold him still, not letting him pull back from the kiss even when he’s starting to get dizzy from lack of air, but even that’s good because the desperate stretch of his lungs burns and has his vision swimming and his cock throbbing in ways he’s inexperienced with, in a pleasure he doesn’t quite understand yet.

But Miles has to pull back for air eventually and he pants in tandem with Michael, open-mouthed and sloppy, his breath hot on Michael’s chin, their chests pressed together and heaving like they’ve only just come up from nearly drowning.

Michael can feel everywhere they’re pressed together and the twitch against his hip when he moans against the side of Miles’s mouth gets his palms itching, because that’s Miles; Miles’s cock hot and hard against Michael’s hip and restrained by Miles’s stupid fucking jeans. Christ, does Michael regret the creation of jeans right about now.

“God, _Miles_ ,” Michael rasps out for lack of anything else, mind seemingly failing him as he tries to grasp for something more meaningful to say.

Miles hums in response as if he gets it, nodding with his eyes closed and his forehead pressed to Michael’s, leaning down further when Michael falls back on his heels. He nudges his nose against Michael’s like he’s trying to get him to open his mouth up again, so Michael does, and then they’re kissing again, Miles hunched over him and moving one of his hands from Michael’s face back down to his neck, fingers twisting in the loose curls at the nape like he did before but only more rough now, insistent.

Michael doesn’t even have the decency to bite back the moan that splits from his lips and into Miles’s mouth when Miles tugs on his hair, his hips bucking against Miles. Even that small bit of friction on his cock is almost too much, because he’s so sensitive everywhere. His hands start to shake because it’s too good, tremors along his arms, so he grips at Miles’s biceps for something to hold onto as his vision swims behind his eyes and makes his knees weak.

“Shit, Miles, I can’t keep standing here,” Michael warns, pulling away from Miles’s mouth.

The resounding whine Miles lets out as he tries to follow Michael’s mouth back, eyes opening in confusion, has Michael’s fingers digging harshly into Miles’s arms, brain overloading at the soft and loose sound. And the look on Miles’s face — this open vulnerability, his eyes dark and blown, a lead heavy weight to the droop of them, his mouth slick and shining — has the skin at the back of Michael’s neck heating, tongue heavy and feeling out of place in his own mouth.

It takes a second for Miles to get his bearings, jaw clenching tightly when Michael’s words register, and then he’s grabbing at Michael’s thighs and tapping on one of them with two insistent fingers.

“Fuck, okay. Hop on, baby,” Miles orders sharply, his voice dropped to nothing more than a quiet rasp that’s almost too intense to be held in the space between them.

Michael doesn’t even have the time to be embarrassed by the endearment, because Miles impatiently picks him up with his hands shifted to cage his waist, Michael’s legs swinging around Miles’s hips so fast on instinct that his head spins and, _fuck_ , that’s so much better. The new position brings his cock flush against the thick length of Miles’s dick, the hardness of it too obvious even through his jeans to be anything else. Michael’s face burns as he hisses, hips stuttering against Miles’s without meaning to, some primal instinct telling him to grind against Miles to ease the throb in his pants.

“Fuck, fuck,” Miles curses, voice going high as he spins them around and presses Michael up against the wall so gently it makes Michael’s heart skip a beat, his hands holding onto Michael’s thighs to keep him up. “Michael slow down, dude.”

And Michael really does mean to, but his brain is so fried and everything is too hot, too slick, sweat at his temples while his body overheats until he feels like he’s burning from the inside out. The only thing that seems to help is _Miles, Miles, Miles,_ so he buries his face into Miles’s neck and licks from the base of his throat to the soft spot behind his ear and, brain swimming mindlessly, digs his teeth in unkindly, hands coming up to fist in Miles’s hair when Miles jerks against him.

And this noise, low and long and thready, leaves Miles like the hiss of a balloon popping. The once kind edge to Miles’s hands disappearing so suddenly that Michael loses his breath, Miles’s fingers clutching and pulling at the skin of Michael’s thighs harshly. Miles cusses, a stream of filth spilling from his mouth as he bucks back against Michael, a snap so good Michael’s ears feel like they’ve been stuffed full of cotton, lava poured into his head, everything blurring out into nothing but Miles and this too hot drag of their dicks together that has Michael leaking and wetter than he’s ever been in his life.

Miles dips his chin and pants into Michael’s ear wetly, nosing at the side of his head, rutting into him now so shamelessly that Michael can’t help but feel like he’s being used. The friction so dirty and raw that his cock is starting to burn even as his precome makes a damp mess of his briefs.

“Fuck,” he moans, tugging at Miles’s hair when Miles dips his head even lower to suck hickeys into the sensitive skin of his throat. “It feels so good I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Yeah?” Miles asks smugly while his tongue skims along the underside of his jaw, the flat of it wide and too slick to be anything but filthy as it leaves a cooling trail in its wake that has Michael shivering.

“Y-Yeah, yeah. I’m— _fuck_ , I’m gonna come if you keep at it,” he admits breathlessly, unrepentant as he flattens both of his hands against the wall behind him and pushes himself crotch first against Miles, angling down so his dick drags along the whole length of Miles’s bulge and then snaps his hips back up before Miles even gets the chance to gasp.

Miles makes an immodest whining noise that has Michael’s ears ringing and then his teeth are clamping down on Michael’s neck, hands slipping from Michael’s thighs to grab at his ass and force him to keep riding along his dick just like that. The dry friction is almost unbearable, Michael gritting his teeth and groaning when Miles’s dick rubs too hard against the dry base of his cock, but the wetness at the head of his dick eases all of the tender heat every time the button on Miles’s jeans brushes it and sends tingles all along his spine.

And Michael has started mumbling nonsense words, rambling like he’s gone a bit senile. His lips drag over Miles’s neck as he discloses everything he feels, tells Miles how good this is, how fucked out he feels even though it couldn’t have been more than five minutes since they started to rut together like animals, how every thrust is getting him even more wet in his briefs, and he knows that it’s getting to Miles, that Miles loves hearing him lose it like this.

Miles breathes harsher at every pant and obscene confession; all of the mindless pleas and insistent begs for more, for him to get rougher, get closer, get _in_ him. Words and sounds spill out from Michael’s smarting mouth and Miles is quick to listen, to grip tighter, grind his hips down slower, thorough when he kisses Michael’s shameless mouth. Michael could get off from just this alone.

But Michael wants so many more things from Miles all at once, wants bruises at his hips and along his thighs from Miles’s fingers, wants Miles’s mouth on his neck, wants Miles’s hands on him everywhere. He wants something new and something that’ll send sparks along his spine and leave him hooked on it, insatiable. Wants Miles to fuck him, in the truest sense of the word, and when he comes he wants it to be Miles who catches him as he slumps back. He wants this to go on forever, to always feel this fucking good.

Miles rolls his hips into Michael’s a bit harder at that last confession, the angle of it causing Michael to interrupt his rambling to gasp, voice breaking off mid-way, and Miles must like that, because he does it again and makes Michael’s whole body shudder. Miles smiles wide against the side of Michael’s mouth then, feeling the shake run through Michael’s thighs and against his palms, positively exhilarated by having Michael coming apart in his hands. He’s still smiling when Michael’s eyes fly open in surprise as Miles pulls him away from the wall and holds him up without any support, walking him further into the apartment.

And it isn’t until Michael’s eyes catch on the door of Jack’s room that his brain finally starts working properly again. He curses harshly, remembering himself and pushing his hands against Miles’s shoulders to get him to stop walking.

“Shit, shit, Miles we can’t. Not _here_. Jack— Jack is sleeping in his room.  _Fuck_. We’ve been so loud he should’ve come out ages ago. We gotta— stop, _fuck_ , we have to stop.”

“Why?” Miles blinks at him, brow furrowed in confusion.

“‘ _Why?’_ ” Michael parrots back in disbelief, voice so quiet now that he’s remembered where they are. “Did you even hear what I just said?”

Miles shrugs, ducking his head to kiss at Michael’s throat distractingly. Which is just evil, really. Michael can’t exactly focus on being reasonable and mindful of other people when Miles drags his teeth along the soft give at the hollow of his throat.

“So I just have to keep you quiet and we won’t have to worry about him, will we? Sounds fun,” he mumbles against the column of Michael’s throat, starting to walk down the hall again. “Where’s your room?”

Michael chokes on nothing, mouth opening and closing wordlessly as he tries to keep his mind from hot wiring at the indecent purr of Miles’s voice when he says, _‘sounds fun,’_  mind supplying so many different scenarios for just how Miles will get him to keep his mouth shut.

He wants to ask Miles how he plans on doing that, heat digging at his spine and his eyes blurring, but what he says instead is, “The door at the end of the hall, furthest from the main room.”

“Good, means we don’t have to keep you too quiet then, huh?” Miles teases into the shell of his ear, voice too smug to be fair.

“Fuck you,” he spits back, but there’s no real heat behind it. Plus, he thinks it’s pretty difficult to sound spiteful when your hands have managed to find their way under the shirt of the person you’re cursing at. “Maybe you’re going to be the loud one, asshole,” he adds with a harsh tweak to Miles’s nipple.

Miles laughs, smile so bright Michael feels like he has to look away or risk seeing spots, and slaps Michael’s hand away from his chest. He rests Michael against the wall next to his door and pushes it open, wrapping one arm around Michael’s waist and the other under his ass so he can carry Michael over the threshold.

His bed is pressed up against one side of the tiny room and Miles’s eyes hone in on it immediately, kicking the door closed behind them and walking over to it. He deposits Michael gently down onto the bed, kneeling between his knees as he does it. Michael’s legs fall away from Miles’s hips and spread obscenely, not entirely by accident, and Miles watches him with the ghost of a smile playing at his lips while he holds himself up over him, hands splayed wide on either side of Michael’s head.

“I’m loud all the time, you don’t want me to be loud when I fuck you, too. Trust me. It’s not pretty.”

Michael’s heart does this fluttering thing, almost skipping, and for a moment he worries he’s going to stop breathing, mouth dropping open and eyes blinking up at Miles owlishly. Because, _oh_.

Miles is going to fuck him.

He wasn’t really thinking about what was happening while Miles was pressing into him, but now that Miles is simply hovering over him with his tinged red cheeks he’s been given the time to think. And it’s like he’s been smacked in the face, because _right_.

Sex.

 _Gay_ sex.

Michael is totally about to be banged by a dude for the first time. Like, properly fucked.

 _Christ_.

“Oh,” he breathes simply, awed.

Miles laughs again, mumbling a quiet, “Yeah,” and then he lowers himself down to kiss Michael’s forehead gently, lips so much more soft than Michael thinks he deserves.

And it’s unfair how quickly Michael’s heart starts racing at such a platonic show of intimacy when they were literally simulating fucking against the hallway wall not even a minute ago, but. Well. Michael’s heart could kill it in a 5k run right about now, fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird.

He makes a hushed hum of approval and grabs at Miles’s shirt (if one of the buttons happens to pop off and fly across the room he’s not going to point it out) to tug him down further until he’s practically on top of him, their chests brushing, and Miles makes a surprised noise at the sudden show of dominance.

“Someone’s excited,” Miles teases right before he inches his way down, stopping temporarily to slot their mouths together, slow at first and then building and building until Michael’s ankles cross behind Miles’s ass to urge him closer, desperate for that same friction from earlier.

Miles only lets him rut up into him for a few short thrusts, groaning into Michael’s open mouth at the sensation of their hips moving together in tandem, but then he’s breaking away to raise up on his knees and unbutton his shirt, fingers deft in their movements. He’s watching Michael while he does it, this look in his eyes that has no business being there, something hazy and too heated for Michael to stand, so he throws an arm over his eyes and focuses on trying to even out his breathing instead of the way Miles looks like he wants to eat him whole.

He wishes he could say something witty or snide, but he’s finding it exceedingly hard to get his mouth working properly, body so exhausted already when nothing’s even happened yet. And there’s this insistent and pesky feeling in his stomach like he’s nervous, like he can’t stop thinking about what’s about to happen and how unprepared he is for it.

Actually, he’s never really looked up how it’s supposed to go down, because he’s never thought he’d need to know that kind of information in the first place. At the most he’s seen a few porn videos with guys fucking each other, but there’s no way in hell Michael is going to take sex tips from porn; seriously, he’s seen a video where a guy fucked a wooden folding chair, okay? He doesn’t trust porn for more than entertainment.

The only thing he really knows about this situation is that Miles is definitely leading this whole operation, and while Michael thinks he should probably be offended that Miles has just assumed that role without discussion, he’s kind of grateful. Like, he really doesn’t know how exactly this is supposed to happen and a lot of the pressure has been taken off of his shoulders knowing that he doesn’t have to do the work.

If he’s being completely honest with himself, though, he’s really starting to enjoy the mental image of Miles holding him down and fucking him breathless. Miles pressing against him everywhere, covering him from head to toe, panting into his ear and keeping him still. But Michael is never still is the thing — this constant energy flowing through him and giving him cause to shake or move even the smallest part of him, but he feels like Miles could contain him. Like all of this pent up energy could be put to better use if Miles took it from him, grabbing him and just taking all of it.

Christ, he’s already going breathless just thinking about it.

Michael drops his arm and lifts up on his elbows in preparation to ask Miles exactly when he’s going to get on with it, his thought process working him up, but when his eyes land on Miles his words catch in his throat because _holy shit_.

Miles has apparently succeeded in unbuttoning his shirt and while Michael had expected to see him shirtless — which he isn’t completely, is the frustrating thing, because his shirt is simply hanging off his shoulders loosely — he didn’t expect that Miles would have also undone his jeans and pulled out his dick so that he could fist himself, dick nestled by a thatch of dark hair and slicker than sin.

He’s properly fucking into the tight circle of his hand while the zipper on his jeans bites into the skin at the back of it and his other hand holds onto Michael’s knee to keep himself steady, watching Michael just as hotly as he was before.

Which is just. It’s. _God_ , it’s a sight.

Miles doesn’t even have the modesty to stop when he sees that Michael is finally looking back at him. Actually, if anything that seems to just spur him on and make him even more indecent in his movements.

He whistles while his pace picks up, dick hard and glistening in his hand and so much more real now that Michael can see the length of it, and says, “Howdy, partner,” in probably the shittiest southern accent Michael has ever heard in his life.

And the worst part — the icing on the cake — is that for some ungodly reason it only stands to make him even more turned on than before, the heat that’d been starting to stagnate low in his belly unfurling until it feels like his whole body is full of pins and needles.

“Fuck,” he spits out, voice entirely too wrecked considering the fact that he’s still fully clothed. “Fuck, Miles, take these fuckin’ clothes off of me already.”

“Can’t a guy get a little self-loving in before they have to defile their supple sheep herding partner?”

Michael squints up at him incredulously. “Are you— are you fuckin’ making a Brokeback Mountain joke right now? Really? This is when you choose to pop open your book of shitty pop culture references? When you’re in the middle of getting ready to fuck me?”

“Hey, don’t sound so put off by my impeccable humor. Your dick looks pretty into it,” Miles counters, nodding down at Michael’s crotch.

Michael snorts loudly. “My dick would be into a couple old ass nuns praying right about now, so that doesn’t count.”

“Kinky. A little gross. Mainly kinky.”

“Shut up and help me get these pants off, dickhead. The faster I get naked, the faster you get to defile me or whatever the fuck you said,” and, because Michael is nothing if not an amicable team player, he tacks on a horribly accented, “ _partner_ ,” for good measure.

“You make a very convincing argument,” Miles says, hands finding their way to the waist of Michael’s jeans and deftly tugging them down, pausing when Michael lifts up on his heels so his jeans ease off of his thighs easier. “ _Fuck_.”

“What?” Michael asks nervously, looking up at Miles while he pushes his jeans down over his knees.

“Nothing, shit, nothing. Just… _fuck_ , man, your thighs sure are something. They’re just… thick.”

His palms come down to rub along them as he says it, so tentative as he sucks his lower lip into his mouth and bites it in concentration. He brushes his thumbs along the soft inner curve of them and Michael’s hips raise and drop desperately and that’s just… a lot.

“Fuck that’s hot,” Miles hisses, eyes burning as he moves his hands up higher and does it again, jaw ticking when Michael’s hips lift up same as before, as if seeking his hands out for more of that weighted pressure, of the sensation.

“ _More_ ,” Michael pants, already gasping for it, Miles’s hands so hot on his thighs and pressing into his skin like a brand. “More, Christ, come on, come on…”

And Michael isn’t waiting for Miles, raising up and pulling his shirt off by himself to toss it somewhere across the room where it makes a satisfying thump. He kicks his legs up to avoid knocking them into Miles and his jeans unravel from around his ankles, shoving his socks off with the heels of his feet as he goes, and it’s not until he’s down to just his briefs that he stops to push his clothes off the bed.

He looks at Miles expectantly and Miles coughs once loudly, moving to stand and finally take his shirt off and drop it to the floor. He pauses with his hand on the waist of his jeans, looking at Michael with a simper.

“Should I be doing a strip tease for you?” he asks, and Michael’s pretty sure he’s not even joking.

“Don’t bother humiliating yourself, just get naked and back up here before I start needing fuckin’ dentures and a walking stick. I have a dick and it has needs.”

“I’m choosing to pretend like I didn’t hear that because I would never sleep with someone who would insult my sensual stripping abilities, they’re what’s getting this fine ass through college,” Miles says as he shucks down his jeans and _of course_.

Of fucking _course_ Miles would be commando.

Michael really doesn’t know why he thought he wouldn’t be, because Miles is fucking obnoxious in everything he does and he didn’t see any underwear when Miles took his dick out in the first place. But still. Utterly ridiculous.

But that’s nowhere near as ridiculous as Michael feels right now, dick smearing more wetness along his skin just at the sight of Miles’s fully exposed cock. God, his mouth is watering and it’s so embarrassing how wet for it he is already.

“No underwear,” Michael notes with a forced amount of casualty. “How effective.”

“Did you see how tight those jeans were? I needed all the room I could get.” Miles kicks off his shoes and socks, stepping out of the jeans in a way that really no one could make seem sexy. “Also I think I’m chafing a bit, if I’m honest. Probably shouldn’t have been grinding against you as hard as I was, but,” Miles shrugs, palms out, and lets the sentence finish there.

“But, uh… so…” Miles drags out as he stands completely naked at the edge of Michael’s bed, which shouldn’t be nearly as distracting as it is. “I think it’s time we talk about how we’re going to do this, because we have a lot of options and I’m really trying to be the responsible one here and talk things through first and go slow because I don’t want to fuck this up. So, like, if you want to pitch in with any helpful ideas that’d be swell.”

“Ideas?” Michael looks at Miles flatly.

“Yeah, like… man, you know. How’re we doing this?”

“I don’t— why’re you asking me?”

Miles snorts loudly, bed sinking under his knee when he starts to edge his way back between Michael’s legs.

“Who else am I supposed to ask? Want me to go knock on Jack’s door and ask who the bottom’s going to be? Bet he’d tell us to flip a coin or just fight for power like crabs or something.”

“Um,” Michael says intelligently as Miles grabs under his knees and gets him to spread his legs wider for him. Miles settles back when properly nestled between his thighs and waits patiently for him to continue. “I’ve got nothin’, ‘cause I don’t really know much. I mean, I’m not, like, a virgin or anything but… well. This is new. You being a dude and all. I just figured you’d do the, um, leading and I’d tell you if I didn’t like whatever the fuck you were doing. Right? Is that okay?”

And Michael really hopes this isn’t putting Miles off, the sudden shyness rearing its head as he lays back with Miles between his legs watching him admit that this is something he’s never done before. Miles is looking at his face carefully, his expression unreadable, and Michael has to look at the ceiling or risk doing something embarrassing like forget how to talk or hide from all of the attention — which is a first, because normally he revels in the spotlight, but his stomach is all twisted up and his palms are getting clammy.

He’s so nervous but he wants this. He does. Jesus, man, he’s aching for it and not even the temporary stagnance between them has stopped him from feeling like he’s on the cusp of coming. Honestly this is only going to end up being embarrassing because he really is going to come ridiculously fast, probably before Miles even gets a hand on his dick.

And it’s been good so far and Michael trusts that Miles can make it even better; he said earlier in the car that he’s done this before, or hinted at it at least, Michael recalls, so he thinks he’s in capable enough hands. So really he knows he doesn’t need to be nervous, but it’s not like he can just will himself back from it.

“Yeah,” Miles agrees, nodding, one hand finding its way to his hip and squeezing it reassuringly. “Yeah, Michael, I can do that.”

“Okay, just, like, don’t… hurt me? Or just, um, go slow with everything, if you could.”

Miles, seemingly unbothered by his fumbling anxiousness, licks his lips and rubs his thumb into the skin of his hip gently. “Hey, man, I can go slow and easy. You want me to do something, I’ll do it, okay? You don’t gotta worry.”

And then, because Miles is an absolute _angel,_ Michael has decided, Miles leans down over him before he can even question what he’s doing and his mouth finds one of the pebbled nubs of Michael’s nipples and laves his tongue over it slowly.

The warm shock of it — hardly comparable to the times Michael has touched his nipples with dry fingers experimentally while jerking himself off — has him arching off of the bed, hands flying out to fist in Miles’s hair, caught between holding him there and pulling him off at the almost too intense sensation of his teeth catching on his nipple and sending something electric and searing to the soles of his feet.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he swears earnestly, looking down at his chest and almost wheezing when he catches sight of Miles with his lips around Michael’s nipple, his cheeks flushed and eyes closed like he’s enjoying this almost as much as Michael.

And then he’s sucking in air too fast and really starts wheezing because Miles fucking _bites_ him — the _fucker_ — teeth unkind and this mix of pleasure and something that twists up his stomach causing him to heave further up on the bed — shoulders pushing down into the mattress and his feet planted on the bed to hold him up — until his crotch hits Miles’s stomach, briefs wet and messy against Miles’s skin.

Miles pulls off of him, his nipple now red and wet and smarting, and Michael blinks up at him as if in a dazed haze. His hips settle back down on the bed inch by inch, so slow, but his chest expands and contracts in double time, almost as if he’s struggling for air.

“You want this, right?” Miles asks and Michael is really starting to have trouble understanding the words because his dick is throbbing again at even the slightest contact, starting to thicken after having flagged a bit. “I need to be sure. Communication, you know?”

And he sounds serious, to the point where Michael has to close his eyes and just breathe for a moment to calm himself down and get his mouth working right again.

When he’s ready, which is to say after maybe a single second later, he breathes more than says, “Fuck, yeah, make a man out of me,” and while he really means for it to come out as a joke there’s something heavy-laden in his tone that makes it sound off.

“I don’t think that constitutes— actually, you know what, man? Let’s just go with it. Just call me captain Li Shang, here to train the future savior of China — that’s you — and temporarily consider the possibility of being gay — also because of you.”

“Jesus, again with the pop culture references? Can’t you just talk dirty like everyone else in the fuckin’ world?”

“Oh I can talk dirty, baby,” Miles whispers, suddenly right there against his ear, voice a low rumble and steeped in sin.

Something hot shoots through him and straight to his dick at the harshness to it, the heavy weight of it as Miles’s breath skims his ear and the sensitive skin of his neck, and _goddamn it_ , he could die right fucking here on this bed because of Miles.

Michael actually fucking whimpers, hands finding purchase on Miles’s shoulders in an attempt to find something to ground himself to, and he squirms under Miles in a mix of anticipation and nerves, goosebumps along his arms and thighs. The way Miles says ‘baby’ has his brain overloading, a mess of noise and signals he can’t make sense of, his nails digging into Miles’s shoulders at the indecency of it, the easy way Miles switches from joking around to something dirty as if discussing the weather.

Miles’s skin is warm to the touch and Michael’s face is red on a newfound blush, trying desperately to keep from begging Miles to do something. He tries to think of something encouraging to say that doesn’t sound as wanton as he feels, because he’s so hard and Miles actually listening to his suggestion of dirty talk is incredibly hot, but Miles raises up so fast that his head spins at the loss of heat.

“But first,” Miles says, voice back to being breezy and light, “I need you to tell me where your lube’s at.”

“My what?” he asks in confusion, mind reeling and his hands comically raised in the air where Miles once was, having been ripped away from him abruptly.

“Lube, man,” Miles says like it’s obvious.

“Um.”

 _Shit_ , Michael thinks.

Miles blinks once, twice, and then a third time before realization dawns on his face.

“Oh, god, you don’t have lube do you? Yeah, right, you’ve never done this before, I don’t know why I— Ahhh,” Miles drags both hands through his hair roughly, back and forth like he’s trying to clear his mind. He stops at the drop of a hat, hands falling to grip at Michael’s thighs. “Okay. No, yeah, that’s— that’s okay. I’ll just— what? Walk to the store at three a.m. for lube? Good idea, Miles, not dumb at all. Oh thanks, Miles.”

Michael puts a hand over his face like maybe if he can’t see Miles then Miles will just disappear and he can be left alone to die from embarrassment. Just figures that the one time Michael is about to bang a guy he ends up not having lube because why would he need lube? Why would he have that readily available when he doesn’t even have all of his stuff from back in Jersey yet?

It’s his first time being in a new state and the only thing he brought from Jersey when he got here two months ago was a cheap suit — sadly, the fanciest thing he owns — and a few pairs of clothes; he doesn’t even have any of his video games, all of his stuff still in the basement at his parents’ house.

Plus, you know, he never thought he’d need lube before now or that he’d ever bring someone back to his and Jack’s place and end up getting all frisky and shit.

 _Fuck_.

“I, um, I have lotion, I think?” Michael suggests quietly under his hand, and Miles flat out snorts like it’s the worst idea he’s ever heard. Which, all right, Michael will give him that.

“Michael, in no world is there ever a scenario where I’d use some dollar store hand lotion on your ass. Do you realize how terrible that’d be? You’d be in so much pain and I’d be chaffing for real. I mean,  _especially_ for your first time, man.”

“Okay,” he mumbles, dropping his hand. He threads his fingers together awkwardly over his chest and looks at anywhere but Miles. “So I guess this isn’t going to be, like, my gay deflowering. Sorry I, like, royally screwed up there.”

Miles shakes his head, fingers digging into Michael’s thighs — and, _Jesus_ , could his dick get with the program already and realize nothing’s going to happen here now? — and bends to kiss Michael’s knobby knee chastely before raising back up.

“Hey, man, it’s not your fault, okay? I’m the one who showed up at your door unexpectedly, y’know? That’s my bad for not thinking first, not yours, you hear me?” Miles pauses pointedly and stares until Michael has to look back and nod or risk laying there in awkward silence until the end of time. “Good,” he says, and then, “because there’s still other stuff we can do.”

“What?” Michael asks, brow furrowing, but Miles is already pulling away and getting off the bed.

“Turn around and lay on your stomach, yeah? Where’s that lotion you said you ha— never mind, it’s on your desk. Wow, next to the tissues, really? Typical, Michael. Very typical. And oh, man, this thing is _light_. Someone’s been busy, huh, tiger?”

And Michael’s glad his face is now hidden, forehead pillowed by his arms and boxing him in as he turns over to lay on his stomach like Miles asked, because his face burns like a forest fire at the implication there, spreading down his neck and to his ears quickly. Which is stupid, because of course he masturbates like almost everyone else in the world, but it’s the principle of the guy who’s been all over him noticing how little action he actually gets that has him flustered.

“Fuck off,” he manages to spit out defensively, only shivering a little when Miles’s fingertips graze along the line of his spine out of nowhere and disappear just before brushing at the back of the waistband of his briefs. The unexpected touch has him rolling his hips into the bed, his jaw clenching to keep himself from making any noise.

“Aw, I love your version of pillow talk, Michael. It’s just the stuff of dreams.”

Miles’s hand comes back to press along the small of Michael’s back as if he’s saving his page in a book, then the bed dips and Miles is splitting Michael’s knees again. Something hits to the left of Michael on the bed and he turns his head into his arm to see the lotion resting there.

“I thought you said you weren’t—”

“I’m not going to fuck you. Promise,” Miles assures him, but his hand has slipped down over his ass and his thumb is rubbing circles into the fabric of his briefs just below one of the dimples of his lower back, so Michael has trouble believing that.

“Then what else are you gonna do?” he asks, raising his head up to try and catch site of Miles out of the corner of his eye. The strain of it makes him drop his head down with a soft groan under his breath, but not before he catches sight of Miles lazily tugging on his cock while watching Michael’s ass under his hand. Which is just… lecherous.

“Oh, Michael… you have much to learn, my young padawan.”

Michael rolls his eyes, reaching up to pull one of his pillows down to his face so he can bury it in it.

“Can’t learn shit if you’re not teaching me, asshole,” he points out, muffled against the pillow.

And if he maybe raises his ass up against Miles’s hand to spur him on, Miles sure doesn’t comment on it, though he does grope Michael’s ass a little harder. Michael curses, Miles not wasting time to bring both hands up to — _finally_ — tug his briefs down, silent the whole time.

He hisses, briefs catching on the head of his dick on the way down, and the rush of hot air — the apartment’s air conditioning not working worth shit to bring the Texas heat down, which he’s been struggling to acclimate to in the first place — feels so good he moans, drawn out and high. He can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed, because Miles tugs his briefs off the rest of the way a little too roughly at the sound, throwing them somewhere Michael can’t see with his face down on the bed, and then his hands are back on Michael’s ass, thumbs spreading him open and _fuck_.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck._

“What’re you—” but he doesn’t even get the chance to ask before he feels something wet and warm pressing against his hole, the sensation frying his brain as he chokes, hips grinding into the bed and getting the duvet dirty of their own volition. “Miles, what—” he cuts himself off on a moan, Miles’s tongue broad and so, _so_ wet against the rim of his hole.

For a moment he thinks he’s going to lose it, that he might scream or thrash or maybe even just fall apart right there on his bed. His sight blacking out and his throat catching, choking on nothing but air, incapable of finishing his sentence or verbalizing anything because his tongue is too heavy in his mouth all too suddenly. His whole body is shaking, thighs trembling and his hands fisting in the pillow, so tight he can feel the protest in the bones of his hands as they tire out too quickly and he finds himself opening and closing his hands like he doesn’t know what to do with them.

His chest is stuttering up and down like something broke inside of him, pulse racing and crashing until he can’t hear anything but his own breaths, shallow and wet and high pitched, like the whistle of a kettle on the stove. He feels like he’s spinning, gasping when Miles’s hands curve over his hips and pull until he’s up on his knees with his face in the pillow and struggling for breath.

And Miles’s mouth doesn’t leave him as he does it. He digs his fingers into the jut of Michael’s hip bones and keeps him still, stroking his tongue over Michael’s hole and sending liquid heat pooling in his stomach and his cock pulsing. He’s so hard he’s aching, every muscle in his body tense and waiting for the crest, that high point when he comes all over the bed. But Miles hasn’t even stroked his cock, hasn’t even _touched_ it, and it feels so wrong to be this close without any real pressure to fuck into, but it’s good.

Christ, it’s mind numbingly hot, the heavy weight of Miles’s palms over his hips and slipping occasionally because Michael is sweating, body glistening in the heat, and Miles has to tighten his hands on him and pull him back on his tongue when his hips push at the air trying to seek some friction. _Something_.

“Oh god,” he whines, voice gone all syrupy, letting his back depress under the pleasure.

He’s burning everywhere, knees sliding along the covers, fingers grappling at his pillow to try and focus his mind on something solid. He’s got his bottom lip between his teeth, trying desperately not to beg Miles to fuck him dry, because he knows it’d be too much, too painful, but fuck if he doesn’t want it anyway; mind supplying filthy scenarios that set him off almost as much as Miles does.

And Miles is really leaving no prisoners alive, getting dirty and letting his saliva make an utter mess of Michael, getting him so wet that everything feels slick and he can feel it running down his thigh, over his cock and making something boil inside of him. The friction from the scrape of Miles’s beard along his skin is good too, almost better, and he pants harder at it. He feels so tight, filthy, breathing haggardly into the pillow and groaning when Miles pulls back to blow cool air over his wet hole.

And then Miles leans down and drags the rough of his beard along the soft flesh of his inner thigh and Michael shudders, expecting him to pull away and go back to licking him open, but instead he feels the puff of Miles’s breath on his thigh and that’s all the warning he gets. Miles sinks his teeth into the skin of his thigh, just at the inner curve of it, and Michael isn’t responsible for the harsh cry he lets out, flaring his nose and pushing back on Miles’s mouth insistently, hands tugging onto the pillow until he hears the threads start to rip and forces himself to let go.

He starts mumbling things unintelligibly, begging Miles for more, to fuck him, but his voice is going too high for it to make sense. His blood is rushing and the pounding of his heart is loud in his ears, so he tries to make his voice louder, but it’s impossible, the onrush of his heartbeat drowning out anything he says.

Miles pulls back abruptly, a hand flying to press on Michael’s lower back until he lowers himself down on the bed. He leans over him, the heat radiating from his body almost too much, and Michael squeezes his eyes shut when he feels Miles press a kiss to the top of his head, going quiet all at once as if he’s been gagged just by that one small intimacy.

“Hey, lover boy, you can’t be loud, remember?” Miles reminds him, petting his side.

Michael whines in the back of his throat, because he forgot, so caught up in what Miles was doing that he spaced out. He nods quickly, digging his face into the pillow and swallowing hard as the hand petting his side slips over the rise of his ass and then back up, down again, back up, teasing.

“You wanna raise back up for me?” Miles asks, kissing the nape of his neck and then lifting up off of him. Michael can feel how wet his mouth is against his skin and the knowledge of why it’s like that, why Miles’s lips leave his neck smeared wet, has his breath going all funny.

He doesn’t bother with a response, just pushes himself back up on his knees and wriggles back until he feels Miles’s hands come up to grab him and keep him still.

“Yeah, shit, Michael. Good. You’re so good.” Miles’s voice is light, thrilled, and Michael’s toes curl at it. “I love how much you want this, so ready for it.”

Miles’s hand slips down along his back, fingers dragging along the knobs of his spine until his hand cups the back of his neck, adding pressure and making Michael’s face press deeper into the pillow. Michael doesn’t even try to hide the way his hips buck at the sensation, the feel of Miles pushing him down. Miles’s other hand runs up the outside of his thigh, thumb putting pressure just under the flesh of his ass.

“Gonna get you to come just from my mouth.”

There’s not even a hint of doubt in Miles’s voice. Michael whimpers and bites into the pillow, getting it wet from his mouth.

Miles places a quick kiss along the center of his back and then his hand is gone from his neck and Michael has to force himself to keep from pleading for him to put it back, not wanting to get Miles distracted from making him come, because he wants it. He wants to come so bad he thinks he’s going to go mad from it, cock heavy and dripping onto the bed in slow increments.

Miles palms his ass again, fingers massaging the skin above the cleft of his ass to loosen him up and get him to relax, and then Miles’s tongue is back at his rim. But this time Michael can’t keep still, riding back on Miles’s mouth fervently and not stopping even when Miles frames his hips with his hands to steady him. Miles’s tongue is so good, so soft, everything building and building when Miles drags his tongue over him faster.

He whines, hushed, trying not to get loud, because the pleasure spreading through his body is turning molten and he’s losing his wits as his vision starts to turn blurry around the edges. He closes his eyes tightly, brow furrowing as he strains back against Miles’s mouth, sweat at his temples.

“You’re so receptive for me, fuck, Michael, you should see yourself. You can’t stop moving and you’re shaking under me. So hot. It’s like you’re made for it,” Miles breathes roughly as he pulls back, hands palming at his ass again. His voice sounds so blown and Michael hasn’t even touched him, and the knowledge of that, of how fucked out Miles is without Michael doing anything, has the urge to come building in him.

“Shut up, shut up, I’m so close. Keep going, _please_ ,” he pants, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes in frustration.

“Thought you wanted dirty talk?” Miles asks, mirth evident in his tone but even more obvious when he kisses Michael’s thigh and Michael feels the smile there.

“I want— _fuck—_ I just— I _want_ —”

“Yeah,” Miles interrupts his stammering, voice impossibly soft, “I know what you want, baby, you can stop, you’re okay. Just wanted to hear how much you needed it first.”

And then Miles’s thumb, dry and so much more rough than his tongue, brushes over his hole, pressing but not pushing in. The sudden change of it, the unexpected feeling, has Michael moaning into his pillow and his hand flies blindly under him until his dick is in hand. He shudders, grip on his cock tight, and makes this guttural choked off noise in the back of his throat as Miles’s tongue starts to fuck into him, pressing in deep, thumb slipping under to apply pressure at the soft spot just under his hole.

Michael’s so easy for it then, legs spreading further and ass pressing back for more, his chest heaving and his nipples straining, body an active time bomb just waiting to explode. Everything is slowing, turning more intense, his vision fogged over when he opens his eyes on a gasp as Miles’s hand slaps his away from his cock.

“Keep your hands off yourself, y’hear me? Just on my mouth’s how you’re gonna come, remember?” Miles asks, but Michael doesn’t get the chance to respond before his mouth is back on him, absolutely relentless.

He’s so wet now, thighs covered in it, slick where Miles’s tongue is working him open, and he doesn’t know how he hasn’t come yet. He’s been so hard for so long but Miles is still working it out of him somehow. His hand is back to where it was twisted in the pillow, fighting himself to keep his hands off his dick, but it’s so difficult when he knows it’d only take a few tight tugs to get him to come all over his bed. But Miles told him to hold off so he is, even if it’s making him want to scream with how much he aches for it.

Miles is circling his hole with his tongue, pushing in, out, dragging along his rim, ceaseless and everywhere. He’s getting rougher now and Michael feels strung-out and raw because his ears are hot and his neck is hot and his skin is prickling everywhere, balls pulling tight.

And he feels it immediately, knows right then that he’s going to come, so he gasps for air and manages a weak, “I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna—” against the back of his hand and Miles must hear him, because he slaps at Michael’s ass, buries his tongue in deep, and that’s that.

Sparks along his spine, heat swelling and swelling until it’s thickening the air around him, smothering him as he presses his face into the pillow and holds his breath, feeling dizzy and drunk all over again. And then it’s easy, his hips stuttering and his cock jumping as he comes, bed filthy with it, and he can’t catch his breath as he shakes and shakes and shakes, body tiring out so quickly that he sags into the mattress.

And Miles fucks him through it, tongue fucking him and his hand moving to finally touch Michael’s cock and brush his thumb over the head, milking it out of him. Miles is whispering these small encouragements against his thigh as he strokes him, telling Michael how good he is, how much he deserves this, how hot he is, and Michael doesn’t know why but he’s hiccuping, digging his face into the bed as his cheeks burn as hot as a fever.

When his cock finally stops dripping come onto the bed, body relaxing, Miles’s palm moves to his side and rolls him over onto his back. His hip ends up resting in the wet spot on the bed but he finds that he doesn’t even care. His cock flops onto his stomach, smearing come against his navel, and Michael bites his lip to keep from hissing at the feeling, cock so sensitive now that he’s come. His chest is rising and falling awkwardly, stuttering, and his breath is still choppy despite feeling so loose and sated.

Miles goes to climb over him, forearms pressing to the bed to keep him up over Michael, but he freezes just as his eyes fall on Michael’s face, breath stuttering out of him audibly.

“M-Michael? Hey, you okay? What’s wrong?” Miles’s voice is cautious, suddenly so serious and soft that Michael’s heart starts pounding even after it just started to slow down.

“What?” he asks, bewildered and brain all muddled as he stares up at Miles, vision blurry. It’s too soon for talking and his mouth doesn’t want to cooperate with him, but he manages to slur out a quiet, “’M’fine, what’re you lookin’ at me like that for?”

“You don’t—” Miles furrows his brow, searching his face. “Baby, you’re crying,” he tells him gently, hand coming up to ghost over his jaw, thumb wiping at his — _wet_ , he realizes now — cheek.

Michael blinks once, feels the tears that spill and the wet clump of his lashes, and his heart thumps painfully, because _oh_. He’s crying. This has never happened before and Miles is looking at him so sweetly, his face filled with concern, and Michael feels so embarrassed because _this has never happened before_. He’s not a crier, has _never_ been a crier, and he doesn’t know why he can’t stop crying now.

“Sorry, I don’t… I don’t know what’s happening,” he admits, voice wobbling and making him wish he was back on his knees and could bury his face into the pillow. His face is getting splotchy and red and he knows Miles is watching him as it happens and that only makes him want to hide even more.

“Hey, don’t be sorry, it’s fine. You’re overwhelmed, I get it. So long as you’re not upset, right? You’re okay, yeah?” Miles asks again for clarification, thumb still brushing his cheek soothingly.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m— like, I feel good?” he tells him, confused and a little bit mortified with himself. “I don’t know why I’m crying, this is so goddamn stupid, I don’t fuckin’ cry.”

His hand comes up and wipes at one eye, smearing the tears over his hot cheek and cooling it. His other one moves to cover the hand Miles has on his cheek, the feel of Miles’s warm skin settling the unsteady shake to his body.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure you do, because, well, you _are_. But it’s not stupid, it’s just something your body’s doing to relieve some pressure, y’know? I mean, I’m not really an expert because this is definitely the first time this has happened to me too, but I think it’s pretty standard, right? You just got caught up in the feeling and it, like, built until it had to come out somehow. It’s okay,” Miles reassures him, face twisted like he’s trying to pick his words carefully so he doesn’t set Michael off.

He rubs at his nose, nodding slightly. “Yeah, I guess.”

“And plus, dude, like, it’s actually pretty hot that you got so worked up you started crying. Like, am I that good, baby? Got you so hard you started crying?” Miles asks him, but Michael really doesn’t know how to respond to that, dick throbbing again as if there’s still some fight in him.

He whimpers before turning into Miles’s hand and pressing a kiss to his palm, and Miles smiles at him so softly as he leans down to kiss Michael’s sweaty forehead, then his cheek.

“ _Yeah_. You did so well, Michael. So good for me,” Miles goes on with another kiss to his cheek, and Michael bites his lip, his sight fogging over with tears again. Which. Huh.

“Stop that,” he warns, his voice coming out all post-orgasm faint with no real heat behind it, but Miles stops anyway, pulling back from where he had started nibbling on Michael’s ear to look at him curiously.

“Stop what?”

“The, like—” Michael makes an aborted hand gesture, limbs feeling too heavy to really move, and pushes Miles’s hand off of his cheek “—compliments. I’m— it makes me— y’know.”

“I don’t know. What’re you talking about?”

Michael huffs, “You know… cry. I think.”

Miles is silent for a beat, seeming to think on that, eyes roaming his face like he’s trying to figure out if he’s joking or not.

“The compliments? Are you sure that’s what it was?”

“Well, no, fuckin’, I don’t _know_. But I think so, maybe.”

Miles blinks at him, grins, and then he’s kissing him, opening his mouth up and licking into him and he’s so much more frenzied now. A hand slides over his side, squeezing at the soft give over his waist, roaming higher until Miles reaches one of the hard nubs of his nipples and _twists_. Michael gasps into Miles’s mouth as a mix of pain and pleasure shoots to his soft cock, hips jerking up and brushing his dick along Miles’s stomach, whole body pulsing at the contact.

“Fuck, Miles,” he groans as his hips drop back down, breaking the kiss to look down at where his dick is still all red and flushed at the head, but he’s no longer hard, at least.

He can’t say the same thing about Miles, though, because his dick is hanging heavily against the curve of his hip and leaking down onto Michael’s stomach. Michael’s mouth waters again as he looks at it, the ghost of an ache running through his groin. He wishes he could’ve fucked back on it, had Miles pressing him to the bed and covering him from head to toe, holding him down and just _taking_.

Stupid fucking lube.

“Sorry for, um, for not, like, reciprocating or anything. In the morning I can get lube and we can, um, continue where we left off, if you want,” he offers sorrowfully, still looking at Miles’s cock.

“I‘m not done with you just yet.”

Michael’s eyes fly back up to look at Miles’s face and the shudder that runs through his body when he meets Miles’s eyes can’t be blamed on him. Miles’s voice is smoky, rough, and he’s looking at him, eyes half-lidded and blown, hand slipping down between their bodies again.

“What do you—”

Miles’s hand drags across his thigh, cups behind his knee, and then hitches his leg up at the same time that he grinds down and Michael slaps a hand over his mouth quickly to keep from keening loudly, the length of Miles’s dick dragging over the oversensitive head of his cock and getting it slick all over again. Miles’s cock is so much more wet than Michael realized, glistening along the shaft as if Miles had spread the precome from the head down it at some point when Michael wasn’t paying attention.

Michael’s pretty sure he must’ve done it around the same time he started crying into the pillow and coming on Miles’s mouth. He bites at the heel of his palm to keep from moaning.

“Gonna fuck you some more, if that’s okay with you.” Miles skims his lips over the back of Michael’s hand in a mock kiss while he says it. “You can take it, right?”

And Michael really doesn’t think he can, but he finds himself nodding anyway, grabbing at Miles’s neck and tugging him down for another kiss to distract himself.

Miles pulls away with a whispered, “Good,” drops another kiss to his forehead that has his eyes fluttering shut, and then he’s being rolled back over and pulled up on his knees with his ass so high in the air that his face ends up pressed into the bed harder than before, his pulse rocketing as he gasps into the sheets and has to dip his chin down against his chest for air.

He wants something to grab onto, but the pillow he was using is somewhere in the vicinity of the floor — Michael recalling accidentally pushing it off when Miles had rolled him over to his back — and the other one is too far away for him to reach, so instead he grabs fistfuls of the sheets and breathes heavily into the space between his collarbone and the bed instead. And even while dazed and fucked out, riding the high from coming, he knows he’s going to get loud if Miles touches him where he’s sensitive, that he could wake up Jack or the whole damn neighborhood, but he doesn’t warn Miles.

Because part of him wants that, wants everyone to know how good he feels, how right and whole. Even if it sounds reckless and dumb it makes his mind race in anticipation, throat making these breathy little whines that he traps in his mouth as he gears up for it. Because Miles has to touch him, right? He has to. Even if he’s gone soft and doesn’t think he could even manage a semi right about now, he hopes Miles will touch him more.

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, but he feels so pliant and satisfied that he’s having trouble caring; Miles could really try anything on him right about now and he’d say yes. Everything feels muted now that he’s came all over the bed and Miles’s hand, his body so lax he’s pretty sure he’d melt into the sheets if Miles wasn’t there to remind his body how to position itself.

He’s languid and content, body practically glowing with how good he feels now, and Miles is humming quietly behind him, no real beat just a soft noise. He closes his eyes and just listens, lets his senses strain to feel the dip in the bed when Miles’s weight shifts back some. He registers distantly that his body is trembling, not exactly noticeable unless you were really looking, but he’s got the sneaking suspicion that Miles can tell when he feels his hand skim along his back as if reassuring him that he’s still there.

He feels Miles place a hand on his ass and bites his lip, waiting. Miles spreads him open again, thumb pulling at the flesh of his ass, and it’s disgusting. He feels filthy with it, knowing that Miles is watching him, testing him, his whole body coiled up and wrung tight at the drop of a hat as Miles palms his ass and applies more pressure to the center of his back, forcing his face into the bed and soliciting a wet gasp from him.

“So I’m supposed to be talking dirty, right, Michael? That’s what you wanted,” Miles rasps, but his voice sounds so different than before, so different from him, that Michael’s hardly sure it’s really Miles talking.

Because Miles’s voice isn’t that rough, that vicious, that _severe_. This isn’t how Miles talks but at the same time it is, because _Miles_ is the one holding him together at the seams with nothing more than a hand on the gentle dip of his spine. It’s Miles who slides his hand from Michael’s back down to his shoulder and _lifts_ , pulls him right up on his knees so his back is pressed to Miles’s chest, and then Miles’s arm is snaking over Michael’s front to tug on the hard nubs of his nipples and Michael actually _shakes_.

Because it’s Miles who noses against the shell of his ear to mutter, “You want me to just talk dirty or get dirty, baby?” entirely too lecherously for Michael to handle. And Miles is the one who laughs, breath hot over his ear, and adds, “But I’m a multitasker, so I think I can do both. And we’ll have to get crafty without any lube, but a scout always has a plan B and I’ve got something in mind.”

And Michael’s heart is racing, a shameless noise unraveling from his throat and coming out like a mewl, so feeble, as he turns his head into Miles’s throat to keep from saying something he’ll regret like _‘fuck me anyway.’_

But then Miles is kissing his temple and it’s so much more tender than the words spilling from his mouth, a light brush just next to his hairline, and Michael’s being moved down again, up on his hands this time.

His arms shake with the effort to keep himself up on his own, but he doesn’t give in to the shake, consciously choosing to hold himself as steady as he can while he hangs his head and pants. He feels a hand flit over his thigh and down his calf, a quick absent minded movement, and he rolls his shoulders with it as if he’s shaking off the shiver it causes.

“What’re you— like, what’re you going to do?” he asks Miles as naturally as he can manage, turning his head to try and get a clear view of what Miles is doing.

“Back in my first year of college when I was still living in a dorm instead of an apartment there was this, uh, guy. My roommate,” Miles tells him, reaching for the bottle of lotion that Michael had almost completely forgot about. “He was one of those wannabe frat boys. Kind of a dick, too, so he definitely fit the criteria. But he’d, uh, come back at ridiculous times in the night, drunk and pulling some girl along with him. You know, typical frat bro shit, right?” Miles squeezes some lotion onto his palm and Michael has to look away, face heating.

“But the guy was saving himself; full on Jo Bros with the promise rings and everything. Which I didn’t know until he woke me up in the middle of the night with a girl in the room.” Miles is moving around, bed shifting under them, and Michael’s skin is flush with goosebumps as he waits for something to happen.

“So I wake up one night and he’s — spread your knees a bit more for me, yeah, like that, fuck that’s good — but he’s just telling this girl he doesn’t want to go inside of her, which my asshole roommate talking about doing anal is not the first thing I want to hear right after waking up, so I try to block it out. But drunk people don’t care about being quiet so I hear them anyway, and he’s saying all this stuff about how it’s not really sex if it’s between her thighs.”

Michael’s whole body tenses immediately and then goes lax, a flash of cold heat through him as his mind rushes to connect the dots. Miles must notice the way he’s struggling to keep from tensing, because he strokes his palm over the space between his shoulder blades as he keeps talking.

“Which, you know, I think that’s not really true, but hey, I wasn’t about to tell him that in the middle of him trying to get laid. But he was really onto something with that, you know? No need for lube like that, plus lotion is great so long as it’s not going in anyone’s ass. And you’re so… you’re so hot on your knees. And then there’s your thighs, man… I’d love to try it with you. Can I?”

And Michael knew that’s where Miles was going with it, but it’s so much more jarring to hear him actually ask to do it compared to just doing it no questions asked. It means that Michael has to actually say words, but he’s a little fuzzy and his heart is hammering and really it’s unfair that Miles expects him to talk when images of Miles plastered to his back and coming all over his thighs are playing on a loop through his mind now.

Magically, though, Michael remembers he’s capable of nodding, so he does, and Miles lets out the breath he must’ve been holding while waiting.

“Thank you,” Miles breathes, voice gone shiver-quiet and reverential. “Thank you, you’re gonna love this. I’ll make it so good for you.”

And then Michael feels the all too warm feel of one of Miles’s hands on his outer thigh, rubbing back and forth, right before Miles’s other hand spreads something cold and slick high along his inner thighs. His hips roll at the feeling, squeezing his eyes shut tight only for a moment until the hand between his thighs disappears.

It’s the lotion, he realizes after opening his eyes and looking down at where he can see Miles getting more of it in his hand. He watches like he’s been captivated as Miles smears even more lotion along his thighs, the sensation of Miles’s palm slick now as it runs back and forth along his skin. Some of the lotion ends up running down his thighs in streaks and it cools along his skin quickly. He shivers, but it’s less to do with the cold and more to do with the way the lotion leaking down his thighs causes everything to seem even more lewd.

And he kind of hates how his face is running hot already just by Miles stroking his thighs, how his head is hanging down to watch what Miles is doing behind him and between his thighs raptly, how he’s gasping for it like he _needs_ it or he’ll burn to ash, but he can’t help it. His cock is starting to throb like it’s getting thick again, but Michael knows it can’t be. There’s no way. He’s got a good refractory period, but not _that_ good.

Except he’s watching down at himself as it happens, cock starting to strain up and fill out, the head turning a red so deep it’s almost purple. He licks at his lips, stomach twisting as his gut pools with an unfathomable heat. So apparently it only takes him a few minutes now when it normally takes half an hour. Michael’s pretty sure that if Miles knew that this is the first time since he was a teenager that he’s got it up this fast after shooting his load Miles would be laughing.

God, he’s really so easy for it with Miles.

“Gonna get you dripping with it,” Miles mutters darkly as he pulls his hand away, and Michael has to bite on the inside of his cheek quickly to hold back from begging, the ache between his legs so prevalent now.

And then Miles is pressing his fingers along Michael’s hole again and Michael’s breath catches in his throat, but Miles’s hand is only fleeting. He gets the area slick with lotion and then his hand is gone and Michael doesn’t know whether he’s supposed to be glad or disappointed, but he’s noticing that more than anything that he’s just incredibly turned on and wants more.

He whines just a little, just enough that it’s not too embarrassing, pressing his ass back in invitation for Miles to slip his fingers back over his ass. And he knows that it’s desperate and shameless and filthy, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t. He wants Miles to fuck him so bad it hurts, the ache through his cock so sharp and consistent that Michael doesn’t think he can stand it for much longer and he just _needs_.

And it’s different than before, because he feels even more strung-out now that he’s came once already. Even the brush of the head of his cock against his stomach is too much when he’s this hard and this sensitive. He’s throbbing and aching and he doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to handle Miles touching him without shouting.

“Oh you like that, huh?” Miles asks, hand coming back with more lotion than before, letting it drip down onto the cleft of his ass and cool a line down his balls. His hand drops down to slide through the mess he’s made, Michael’s stomach doing hurdles over his head when Miles’s fingers brush along his hole. “Wish I could finger you open, bet you’d love that.”

“You could,” Michael blurts out without meaning to, the words just spilling out of him and hanging in the air around him embarrassingly.

Both of Miles’s hands still. “Sorry, what?”

He swallows harshly and tries not to chicken out of asking for what he wants.

“You, like… you could,” he manages to get out, throat feeling entirely too dry all of the sudden and in such a weird contrast to how wet he feels everywhere else. “If you wanted. I… I want it.”

The clean hand on his thigh tenses, fingers digging into muscular curve of it, and Michael hisses loudly, trying to restrain the moan that attempts to slip through his lips. Miles pulls his hand away in a rush at the noise, body jolting like he’s been shocked.

“Sorry,” Miles apologizes quickly, palm running over his thigh soothingly. “And I can’t. It’s just— it’s— it’s lotion, man. It’d be too uncomfortable, the stuff absorbs too fast and you’d be in pain in seconds. I wouldn’t even be able to get three fingers in to fuck you properly.”

He shudders, because Miles is thinking about finger fucking him with three whole fingers and the most Michael’s ever done on himself was one while he was in the shower and he didn’t even get past his second knuckle. And it shouldn’t be so hot, because it’s too clinical, Miles telling him about the way lotion absorbs into the skin, but his dick is into it.

Well, to be fair, his dick is into pretty much anything right now, but the mental images Miles is inadvertently supplying him with are definitely something he’ll be thinking about for a long time.

“Right,” he agrees and tries his best to keep the dejected tone out of his voice.

“Rain check, okay? Promise I’ll spread you open on my fingers the first chance I get so long as we’ve got the lube to do it with. Just be patient, we’ve got tomorrow to worry about that,” Miles assures him.

And a thrill goes through him at the thought of another time, heart tripping over itself, and he nods briskly, humming in assent. He swears he’s going to buy the world’s largest tube of lube in the morning and he’ll never in his life have to worry about not having any ever again.

Miles’s hand starts moving again, fingers tracing around his rim but that’s it. He doesn’t finger him like Michael wants, just teases him lightly before his fingers disappear entirely. And Michael wants to complain, but he knows safety is more important than anything else no matter how badly he wants something to fuck back on. So he breathes deeply to center himself and waits ever-so patiently for Miles to get on with it, but he doesn’t have to wait long.

“Put your hands on the headboard,” Miles tells him and Michael is compliant as ever and doesn’t have to be told twice, grateful to finally have something to rest against.

He has to shuffle forward on his knees some to do it, but Miles follows after him, hand never leaving his thigh. He grips at the headboard and tests his hold, fingers curling into the wood, and then he shimmies back just a little for optimal comfort.

Miles shifts his hand up to Michael’s ass to hold him still when they both settle and then Michael has to hold his breath because Miles is shifting closer and there it is; the length of Miles’s cock presses along the cleft of his ass and his whole body clenches, insides turning out, but Miles doesn’t move. He just rests his cock there, right over his hole, and Michael can hear Miles’s breath hitch behind him as he holds himself steady.

He feels it when Miles drops the lotion covered hand to his ass again, palm landing just above his dick so his thumb can press it down between Michael’s cheeks and his fingers can fan out to splay along along the ample amount of flesh Michael’s ass has to offer. And it’s hot, the weight of Miles’s cock so obvious against him that his breath bottoms out in awe and maybe a little bit in anticipation.

It takes Miles a long moment, like he’s taking in the sight of what he looks like along Michael’s ass, and then his hips are pulling back torturously slow. He purposely drags the length of his cock along Michael’s hole as he does it, the wet slip of the lotion almost entirely masking the dirty friction; and it sends fiery sparks along his spine and to the soles of his feet, his toes curling with it, nails biting into the wooden headboard harshly as he tries to keep his breathing even. Which is a true marvel, because it seems Miles has no qualms about panting loudly, the hand on Michael’s hip shaking like he’s holding himself back.

And the world almost seems to tilt on its axis when Miles’s hips snap forward, because the head of his cock catches momentarily on his rim and Michael doesn’t know if he’s going to blackout or come from the pleasure. Either way, though, he can’t manage to keep his eyes open because Miles starts rutting against him without even the slightest bit of shame, cock ceaselessly fucking against his hole and setting his nerve ends on fire.

And Miles is starting to make these noises, quiet little echoes of moans that catch in his throat, and Michael feels phenomenally dizzy with it. Miles is pulling at Michael’s hips, hands running along his skin, pressing everywhere, pushing Michael further up the bed as he rubs himself off against his ass wildly with harsh snaps of his hips.

It’s incredible, the way Miles goes from being so in control to frantically trying to get himself as close as possible to him. It makes Michael feel powerful, like he’s swaying Miles to do what he wants just by pressing back, by moaning into the back of his hand just loud enough for Miles to hear — like he’s the one leading all of this, like everything is about him in this one singular moment as Miles gets close enough to place a kiss on his shoulder.

And then Miles’s right hand presses firmly along the nape of Michael’s neck, the pad of his thumb placed at the side of his throat and brushing there lightly. He can probably feel the way Michael’s pulse is racing.

“You’re just gonna let me do whatever I want to you, aren’t you?” Miles asks, voice almost nothing more than an unintelligible rumble as he curls up against Michael’s back. “Wouldn’t even mind if I came all over your ass, huh?”

Michael shakes his head, which isn’t exactly an answer because those were two very different questions, both of which make him feel hot all over and better than he’s ever felt in his life. But the thing is is that he’s starting to lose it just a little bit, cock heavy and leaking onto the bed as if a gentle breeze could get him off. Which is not the kind of thing he wants when he’d rather come all over Miles’s hand again or in Miles’s mouth.

His cock throbs at that thought, just the idea of Miles stretching his mouth around his dick is enough to have him choking on nothing. God, he feels amazing. Everything is slick and hot and so heady that his head has gone all blissed out and fuzzy, the length of Miles’s body plastered along his back and radiating warmth, Miles’s palms sliding down his body to hold his hips now.

He has to bite his lip to gather himself before actually replying with a weak, “Yeah. _Yes_ , fuck, Miles, you can do anything.”

And he didn’t know it was possible for his voice to sound that wrecked, that _ruined_ , and he’s wondering if Miles could even understand half of what he said. It’s not like he was sucking cock, so he doesn’t know how he went from talking regularly to sounding like he’s been spit roasted.

But Miles must hear him, because he hums softly. Then, “Anything, huh? So if I wanna keep you right here—” he emphasizes the word by tightening his grip on Michael’s hips and pulling Michael back on his dick, thick cock sliding at a different angle and slipping down between his thighs, the head of it just barely brushing against Michael’s balls and making him gasp and drop his forehead down onto the headboard heavily “—and never let you off this bed, confine you, keep you this fucked out and loose for me… you’d be okay with that?”

Michael opens his mouth to say, _‘Yes, please, anything,’_ but Miles pulls away and thrusts his hips back in the exact same way, only deeper this time, dick slipping fully between his inner thighs and dragging over the hypersensitive skin just behind his balls before actually pushing against them.

And if there were words he was trying to say, then fuck if they aren’t gone with the wind, because instead of saying anything he ends up whining in the back of his throat, high-strung and noisy, jaw snapping shut with it as his whole body tries to twist away from the contact, cock pulsing because he’s still sensitive, shocks running everywhere along his body.

It feels like it’s been hours since Miles was rimming him out and his cock is still just as fucking touchy as it was right after he came, and the thing is is that he doesn’t want Miles to stop. He’s pretty sure he’ll end up biting his tongue off if Miles keeps at it, though, but he’ll count that as a casualty of war.

So he finds himself nodding furiously, not able to stop the noises he’s making long enough to actually say anything. And Miles groans, the sound registering as unbearably carnal, Michael’s stomach swooping acrobatically at it.

“‘Course you wouldn’t mind. Filthy, aren’t you? Not a surprise, really, but I never would’ve thought you’d be this pliant for me. Rage Quit must just be some fluke, ‘cause you sure don’t seem to have much fight in you now that you’ve come, not even bossing me around anymore. You can’t even manage to talk when you want dick this bad, can you?” Miles asks teasingly, like the prick he is.

Michael really wishes his breath would stop going all funny every time Miles talks.

Miles’s hands are keeping him in place, hips canting up fiercely at that exact same position every thrust now and it’s like there’s a direct cord between that spot behind his balls and every sensitive area in his body, because everything in him clenches at each drag across his perineum, the sensation taking him somewhere far off out of stratosphere where it’s hard to breathe let alone _talk_.

And Miles clearly knows exactly what he’s doing to Michael, but he must enjoy torturing him, because he keeps stroking his cock right along Michael’s balls now, skin a mess of lotion, sweat, and precome and making everything slick. The friction is barely there now because of it, the only real feel is the pressure of Miles’s cock and the heat digging into his spine, but Michael is still so desperate for Miles that he’s gasping, hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically at the headboard like he can’t control himself.

“You can touch yourself, you know,” Miles says suddenly, mouth right there against his shoulder and brushing along his skin, and Michael almost wants to cry because while he wants to, he doesn’t think he could handle the sensation of it. “Don’t need my permission or anything. Think I’d like to see you fucking yourself, too. You’re gorgeous.”

His left hand comes up next to Michael’s to grip at the headboard, looking almost as big as Michael’s. Which is odd, because Michael’s hands are already huge in their own right, but Miles is just… Miles is just _big_ everywhere. If Michael were just a few inches shorter he’d say that Miles overshadows him, but yet their hands still manage to look perfect next to each other, like two connecting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. And it’s so weird, really, how that’s getting him even more turned on than the way Miles is skimming his teeth over his shoulder.

He’s noticed with Miles that he’s wanted it rough, wanted Miles over him, fucking him, wanted so many things he hasn’t even permitted himself of thinking for fear of sounding so much more… kinky than he normally is. And it doesn’t help that Miles is talking dirty right against his ear now, chest pressing along his back and using the grip he has on Michael’s hips to pull him back against him.

“Michael, baby, do me a favor and push back on it, okay? Yeah, like that, _fuck_ ,” Miles cusses with heart as Michael starts moving to meet every thrust.

And it’s almost better like this, pushing back along Miles’s cock, because he can feel Miles’s control slipping, can tell right away that he’s starting to go a little mindless with it. Miles’s hand is slipping up along his waist because of the heat and the sweat and Michael can feel the way he’s shaking slightly against him, like he’s trying to contain himself but can’t stop from bursting along the seams.

And that’s why Michael throws it back as best he can, starts rutting against Miles like he’s starving for it, going wild with it, pushing back to try and get more of that slip-slide of Miles’s cock along his balls that makes heat shoot through him. And he’s going to come again if he doesn’t do something to stop himself, so he drops a hand from the headboard and carefully grips at the base of his dick to stave it off, pulling his cock up against his stomach and holding it there so he doesn’t feel it when Miles pushes deeper and almost rubs against it.

He looks down at the length of his body then to see how flushed his chest is, how his dick is so wet it’s glistening at the head, and then Miles thrusts at the same time he pushes back and he gets an eyeful of the overwhelming sight of a tenuous string of precome coming from the head of Miles’s cock and smearing against his inner thighs. And really he can’t be held responsible for the moan that breaks past his lips at that, noise too high and breathy to be mistaken for anything but desperate.

“Yeah, fuck, Michael,” Miles spits out raggedly, digging his face into the back of Michael’s neck and obscuring his voice slightly. “Wanted to hear you so bad when we were in that car. Jesus, man, when you asked if I was hard because of you I thought I was gonna lose it right there.”

And Michael can’t even say he’s surprised that Miles talks this much during sex, because Miles never shuts up in the first place. He’s starting to wonder if the only way to get Miles to quiet down would be to get a dick in his mouth or to press him down and fuck him. Maybe the pressure of it would hush him, make him shake, and Michael’s jaw clenches at the thought, because fuck if he doesn’t want to do that to Miles just as much as he wants it for himself.

“Can’t wait for the chance to feel you from the inside,” Miles admits, mouth running without stopping while Michael rides back on him, using his grip on the headboard as leverage to push back as fast as he can. It’s like Miles can’t help it, like there’s just no brain-to-mouth filter now that he’s close. “Feel the way you grip me. Christ, you’re gonna be so tight and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to stop fucking you. Tell me, baby, have you— have you ever fingered yourself?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he huffs harshly, forcing the word out of his mouth while he grits his teeth at the way their skin is slapping together, noise impossibly loud and intoxicating.

“Of course. Of _course_ you have. I’d love to watch you, to see you getting yourself ready for me. How much can you take?”

He shakes his head wildly, body shaking everywhere, grip on his cock so tight now it almost hurts. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t do more than one before I came. Too much. It was too much.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Miles moans into his shoulder with a snap of his hips, digging his face into the spot between Michael’s neck and shoulder, beard unforgiving against his skin and making it turn pink. “You’ve only tried it once?”

Miles’s hand moves over on top of the hand he has on the headboard and his eyes fly open to look at it as Miles twines their fingers together, heart seeming to stop for hours as he takes in the sight of it before kicking in again. And the funny thing is that he hadn’t even noticed he closed his eyes in the first place, so focused on Miles’s voice that he’d forgotten himself.

God, he wants Miles’s mouth on him.

“Kiss me. Need it,” he begs earnestly, not bothering to answer, heart soaring.

And Miles does, slowing his thrusts to grinds as he presses a line of kisses along the skin of his shoulders, then his neck, the hinge of his jaw. His nose nudges along his cheek and Michael turns his head into it, panting for Miles, opening his mouth up before Miles even gets the chance to do it himself.

He’s greedy for it, brow furrowed and eyes squeezed shut in concentration as he strains to get at Miles’s mouth. He’s practically trying to climb down Miles’s throat, pressing as close as possible and sucking on Miles’s tongue fervently. It’s sloppy, open-mouthed and lacking finesse, but it’s making Michael burn everywhere, body boiling and too hot to touch.

Miles pulls away gasping, breath stuttering out. A thin bridge of saliva stretches between their lips then breaks when Miles licks his lip and Michael wants to scream just a little bit at it. Miles hasn’t even opened his eyes yet and Michael’s fascinated as he watches him take it in, the flutter of his eyelashes, the way his throat bobs, the blush on his cheeks that’s mirrored on the tips of his ears.

And when Miles finally opens his eyes they’re cloudy, distant. Miles blinks slowly for a moment, wonderstruck, before his eyes clear and then he’s looking at Michael like he’s going to devour him, eyes alight and sparking. Miles’s hand breaks free from Michael’s, coming up under Michael’s chin to grab his jaw and push his head up in the air as Michael whimpers, neck exposed.

“So good,” Miles praises him, biting at the skin of his throat and then sucking a bruise over his Adam’s apple, Michael’s head spinning with it. “Fuck, you’re perfect. The best, Michael.”

Miles starts fucking him right again, thrusts consistent and rhythmic, forlorn hand on his hip moving to his lower stomach and starting to pull Michael’s ass back on every thrust. And Michael… Michael’s not proud of the way he’s starting to tear up again, just like that. Like he’s easy for it, like Miles could get him in tears just by saying one sentence. But he is and Miles can, no big gestures needed to get him like this.

“Never gonna forget this, never gonna want anyone but you after this. God, Michael, you’re killing me, you know? I’m so — _fuck_ — so hard. Wanna come on your thighs, your mouth. _Anywhere_. You’re so hot already, but you’d look better with my come all over you. Want it. I want to see it, want it so bad,” Miles is saying, not pausing even when he’s groaning into the side of Michael’s neck, utterly senseless, hand letting go of Michael’s jaw to splay loosely over his throat.

Michael wishes he could say that he’s not shivering, that he’s not all weepy and heaving slightly, chest hiccuping. But he is. His cheeks are burning, tears brimming and almost spilling, and he lets go of his cock to wipe them away on the back of his hand, whole body shaking and his legs closing tight without meaning to when he does it. He hears Miles hiss, curse brazenly, and realizes belatedly that his thighs have gone tight around Miles’s cock.

And if he thought that Miles was frantic before, then that’s nothing compared to now.

Miles fucking _bites_ him like a wild animal, digs his teeth into Michael’s shoulder, tongue laving at the imprint of his teeth afterward, mumbling into Michael’s skin. And it’s like Michael’s being pulled apart, an almost completely silent cry leaving his lips when Miles moves his hand from Michael’s stomach to dip between Michael’s thighs, getting his palm slick with the lotion that’s almost all slid down from Michael’s thighs onto the bed, and then he circles Michael’s cock with his fingers and _pumps_.

“Gonna cry for me again, baby? So good, you’re so good,” Miles is murmuring into his throat now, breathing uneven. “Want you to. So hot for me.”

“ _Miles_ ,” he wheezes, shaking like an earthquake and losing himself in the onslaught of stimulation from Miles’s palm and cock.

He looks down at himself blearily and moans, the sight of Miles’s fingers around his dick and tugging him off too much. He has to look away, has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out, pulling in air and holding it, counting in his head to try and keep himself from coming.

“Next time, when I fuck you for real, I want you in my lap, fucking riding me, taking control and using me to get yourself off. Taking my dick so deep you’ll start speaking in tongues. And when you least expect it I’ll start fucking up into you, grab your waist and force you down on me, get you so full of me you’ll start crying again. You were made for me, baby, made to fuck me, to choke on my cock.”

“Please, Miles,” he sobs mindlessly, gasping and lightheaded. “Please, I can’t. I _can’t_. Please.”

“Can’t what, baby? So greedy for it, huh? Whatever happened to patience?”

“I’m gonna die, ‘s’too much,” he wheedles, slurring, trying to get Miles to realize what’s happening even though it doesn’t make sense, gasping wetly.

He arches his back against Miles and his hand, wet from the tears he wiped away, grabs at Miles’s wrist for something to hold onto, but he doesn’t stop Miles, just holds on and feels the deft way Miles is moving his hand to get him off, feels the shifting sinew in his wrist as he speeds up.

“Now that—” a gasp “—that’d be a first,” Miles laughs even while his voice is wrung tight from fucking Michael’s thighs. “But steady, baby. Feel that?” he asks on a particularly pointed thrust. “That’s me. I’m right here, yeah? I got you, it’s okay.”

Miles’s grip on his cock tightens, slips over the crown, goes back down, and Michael’s gagging on nothing, gasping for it, taking push after push of Miles’s cock along his balls and the wet roll of Miles’s hand on his dick. He’s mindless now that he’s this close to coming, his body seizing up every time Miles’s breath fans along his skin, cock leaking, so close to bursting.

He feels open and debauched, overexposed and like Miles is watching every single movement he makes. The bed is so wet his knees are slipping and can’t find purchase and if it weren’t for the unsteady hand he has on the headboard he’s sure he’d have fallen over ages ago. His toes are curling, his body not knowing how to keep still, and he can’t stop fucking back even when he’s sensitive and starting to cry for real, tears rolling down his cheeks and feeling so cold in comparison to how hot his cheeks are that it burns white hot, like running an ice cube over his skin.

And he just keeps pushing back for more and more of that slip of Miles’s cock between his thighs and his balls, feral and so desperate for the fulfillment of coming that he’s starting to get loud, louder than he should, loud enough that he knows Jack will end up waking up from it if he keeps going. He has to hold his breath again, force himself to hold in the noises he wants to make, not so fucked out that he doesn’t know better than to keep quiet.

But the sensation of being deprived of air is good too, dizzying, muddling his brain up. He almost wishes Miles would tighten the hold on his throat more, something he’s thought about doing before but never built up the courage to try out. But he thinks that if he asked and Miles actually did it he might pass out, so he supposes it’s a good thing that he doesn’t.

And just when he thinks he’s about to come, pressure swelling and building low in his belly, Miles pulls away from him completely, cock slipping from between his thighs, hand leaving him fucking up into nothing. And Michael almost wants to use the grip he has on Miles’s wrist to pull him back, bewildered and desperate for the warmth of Miles’s hand on him, but he doesn’t. He lets Miles go and puts his hand back up on the headboard.

“Don’t move,” Miles orders, voice deep and worn out.

Michael nods, tries not to whine in disappointment when the hand on his throat leaves him and ends up pushing his thighs together. Miles is panting harshly behind him, breathy, the hand on his thigh digging into the muscular curve of it, pain shooting to Michael’s dick and making more tears blur his vision.

And it’s not until Miles curses only a few seconds after he pulled away that Michael realizes Miles is fucking into his fist with the intent to come on Michael’s thighs, just like he said. His dick throbs, ready for it. Miles’s hand is on his ass now, thumb spreading him open like he did while eating him out, the memory of it making Michael buck his hips.

And Michael figures that now would be a good time for some encouragement, so he takes a deep breath to compose himself as best he can and slurs lewdly, voice so much raspier than normal, “C’mon, Miles, wanna feel it.”

“Fu- _ck_ ,” Miles stutters into a moan suddenly, forehead dropping heavily onto Michael’s back, just between his shoulder blades.

And then Michael feels the unexpected hot splatter of Miles’s come hitting his thighs, along his perineum, and the cleft of his ass. He can feel it dribbling down over his hole, the backs of his thighs, and his breath goes all funny, turning his head to bite into the side of his arm to stop from moaning.

He doesn’t expect Miles to move so quickly either, but then Miles lets go of him, drags a hand over the back of his thigh, along where his come is running down, and then grabs Michael’s cock and starts milking him again, hand impossibly slick with his own come.

And that’s what sets Michael off, that knowledge that the reason why the slip of Miles’s hand is so frictionless being that his come is coating his palm. He fucks up into Miles’s hand vehemently, mind going white with the pleasure rocketing through him, vision tunneling until he has to shut his eyes. His hands clench into the wood and he shakes like a leaf in a tornado, panting, mouth open as he comes and thrusts his hips forward, Miles murmuring encouragements and praise up the delicate line of his spine.

He doesn’t even come much, but it hits the headboard, slides down onto the bed sheets, and Michael doesn’t make a single noise, blissed out beyond speaking, beyond sound.

“God,” Miles mutters into the shell of Michael’s ear now, having raised up the second Michael started shaking so he could hook his chin over his shoulder and watch him come apart. “C’mere, let go of the— yeah, good.” He grabs Michael’s hands, kisses along the knuckles on one of them before switching to the other, pulling Michael around until he’s facing him. “Want you to lay back for me, okay? Know you’re tired, but I’d like it if you would.”

And Michael’s more than a little tired, he’s fucking _exhausted_ and even that’s an understatement, but he listens anyway, pliable and submissive as his whole body throbs. Miles watches him as he carefully rests his back against the headboard, making sure that he’s far away from the mess he made. His ass and thighs are wet and soaking the bed even more as he uses the pillow that wasn’t knocked off onto the floor as cushioning for his back, slumping slightly when he’s settled.

Miles smiles at him softly, backs of his knuckles dragging across his thigh and then his cheek as he gets between Michael’s legs. Michael watches him quietly, blinking sluggishly, body still pulsing after coming for a second time.

“Okay, lover boy, want you to come one more time for me. Can you do that for me, baby? Wanna watch you this time, see your face.”

Michael stares at Miles, head swimming and stupefied, everything liquefied in him and subdued, mellow beyond compare. And he doesn’t know what Miles means, really, because he can’t. There’s no way he could come again, and unless Miles is going to magically snap his fingers and reload him, it’s just not going to happen.

But Miles is looking at him so tenderly, hand so gentle on his still wet cheek, that he wants to give him anything he asks, anything at all; he’ll throw a rope around the moon and pull it down for him if Miles asks him to while looking at him like that. So he licks his lips and nods, opening his mouth to say okay, but nothing comes out, throat raw.

Miles doesn’t move, though, just rests back on his heels patiently for Michael to say what he wants.

He has to clear his throat, then slurs quietly, “Okay, but ‘m’sensitive.”

“Yeah, baby, wasn’t gonna be rough. Promise. Just want to get my mouth on you. You haven’t flagged yet, still riding the comedown, so I can still do it. That okay?”

Michael nods, head feeling like a boulder on his shoulders. Miles is right, too. His dick is still hard, aftershocks still running through it, and he knows it’s not going to last long. He’ll probably be soft in under two minutes, but Miles can probably get him to come again in less than that, so he doesn’t say anything.

“Can’t wait to get your cock in my mouth,” Miles mutters bluntly, kissing Michael’s knee and then up his thigh as he moves onto his stomach.

Miles grips at Michael’s hips and pulls him down some more on the sheets, getting him where he wants him. His breath is hot as it fans over Michael’s cock, and then Michael’s whole body jerks, toes curling, knees bending up as his feet plant down for leverage and buck against Miles’s mouth, because Miles has taken Michael’s cock down to the back of his throat like it’s nothing.

Miles tightens the grip on Michael’s hips and then shoves, pushes Michael back down on the bed and pins him there, his mouth hot and soft and everywhere, making Michael feel surrounded in the best way. And Michael is whimpering weakly, mewling while tossing his head back and forth like he can’t stop himself, like he can’t help it, like he’s hysterical with it.

His ears are ringing, brow straining, and his hips are trying fruitlessly to either move closer or away from Miles’s mouth, Michael’s not sure. The sensation of having Miles’s mouth on him right after coming makes him so sensitive it hurts but at the same time he can’t get enough of it, Miles’s tongue so smooth as it glides along his cock and makes everything slick and soft.

His hands are fluttering in the air uncertainly, wanting to grab something but also wanting to hide his face, because he’s sobbing again; he never really stopped crying, not exactly, but now it’s even worse because instead of the one stray tear it’s continuous, body stunned and overwhelmed to the point of feeling substantially weighed down and weak, not capable of keeping the tears back anymore. He’s wound-up and uptight as his thighs try and tense around Miles’s head, mind hot-wired and spacey, thoughts murky at best and senseless.

And he’s raving incoherently, repeating Miles’s name and whimpering on a loop, like the film on a VHS tape skipping, stuttering, catching, louder than he’s ever been during sex. He’s not even thinking about the words that are spilling from his mouth, just going with it because he can’t stop himself from babbling. It makes Miles pull off of him, though, and Michael’s surprised by how much he wants to shove Miles back on his cock, but he stops himself by digging his hands into the bed sheets.

“Fuck, you gotta keep quiet,” Miles reminds him, but Michael can’t focus on anything other than the slick come on Miles’s bottom lip and the way his voice sounds so much thicker after practically deep-throating him.

Miles’s less dominant hand lets go of Michael’s hip — which is a dangerous game when Michael’s hips are _still_ trying to fuck up into the air subconsciously, unrelenting — and comes up to cup Michael’s cheek, thumb brushing over Michael’s mouth.

“Open up, baby,” Miles commands, dark eyes on Michael’s mouth. So he listens docilely, dropping his mouth open without more than a soft whine that escapes the back of his throat before he can stop it, and then the pad of Miles’s thumb slides along the soft warmth of his tongue, salty along Michael’s taste buds. “Bite down.”

And Michael does, hard enough that he’s worried he might hurt him, but then Miles is laving the flat of his tongue over the head of Michael’s cock, flicking over a bundle of nerves just under the crown, and Michael decides that Miles deserves it, because _fuck_.

 _Fuck_ , that’s fucking _rude_. And good. So incredibly good that he wants to tell Miles how mind-numbingly fantastic it is but he _can’t_ , because he can’t let go of Miles’s thumb and he’s still fucking crying and _fuck_.

Miles sucks him down again and Michael’s stomach muscles are so tense it aches, drool from Miles’s mouth slipping down his cock and along his balls, Miles’s heavy-lidded and blown eyes on his the whole time. It’s like he’s been cut open, flayed raw, whole body simultaneously tense and loose at the same time. He breathes heavily out through his nose at the same time as Miles tongues the slit of his cock and for a moment he thinks he’s been paralyzed, everything stopping.

He actually curls in on himself like he’s shielding himself, practically doubling over where Miles’s head bobs down to take him into his throat again. His hands surging up to bury themselves in Miles’s hair as his vision spirals and then dims until it’s gone black, shutting his eyes without meaning to. He stops breathing, body nothing more than a wriggling mass of exposed nerves and heady sobs with Miles’s mouth around his cock.

He's coming for a third time, helpless to it as it makes his body writhe, then go slack. The room narrowing until it’s closing around them, just Miles and him. His hands pulling tight on Miles’s hair, so oversensitive and bleary as Miles keeps sucking him off despite Michael coming down his throat with what little he has left, cock painfully raw now. Whole body taut and singing, screaming, begging for the unbearable satin-like heat around his cock to disappear.

And then Miles — _thank fucking Christ_ — pulls off of him and he can breathe again, mouth dropping open and letting go of Miles’s thumb, which slips from his mouth easily.

“Beautiful,” is the only thing Miles says before he’s shooting up to cup Michael’s face and kiss him, mouth soft and tongue salty.

It’s soft, gentle, nowhere near as feverish as the other kisses. It calms him down, makes his heart slow down until it’s beating regularly. His eyes are closed, eyelids too weighted to open again, and Miles pulls away to press chaste kisses over both of them, soothing the shake running through Michael’s body as he brushes his thumbs along Michael’s cheeks.

“Thank you,” Miles breathes against Michael’s mouth, voice painfully sincere. “Thank you for letting me touch you.”

Michael’s nothing more than a puddle as Miles brushes his hands everywhere over his body, along his thighs, up his stomach, across the expanse of his chest. He feels floaty, headspace somewhere far off in the clouds and soaring up, up, and away from everything else, over the hot air balloons and planes, higher than he’s ever been in his life.

Safe.

Warm.

Content with Miles kissing at his neck and wiping over the tracks of his drying tears so gently it’s like he thinks Michael’s the most precious antique he’s ever laid hands on; like Michael matters, the slope of his shoulders substantial, every freckle along his cheeks deserving of the attention Miles is giving, the rising and falling of his chest as he breathes more vital than anything else in Miles’s world.

Miles kisses his sweaty temple, then his forehead, and asks, “You good?”

And Michael doesn’t even have to think before he sighs, eyes opening, smiling sleepily at Miles.

“Yeah.”

•••

When Michael wakes up in the morning Miles is snoring loudly into the naked bed, dirty sheets overwhelming and spilling out of the laundry basket in the corner of his room. One of Michael’s arms has gone dead from where Miles is using it as a pillow while the other is thrown around Miles’s waist, chest pressed up to Miles’s back with their legs twisted together, and he has to carefully untwine them and roll off the bed when he notices that his phone is flashing from where it rests on his desk.

He walks awkwardly over to it, thighs feeling gross from where they were too sleepy to bother cleaning up past wiping most of the lotion and come away with the tissues from Michael’s desk.

He fucks up his passcode two times in a row, cursing loudly and looking over quickly towards the bed where Miles snuffles, then goes silent and thankfully doesn’t wake up. He gets it right the third time and opens up his messages, grin spreading on his face.

> **From: Barbara :P**
> 
> _???????????_
> 
> _What the Hell Michael?!_
> 
> _WATER IS THIS??????_
> 
> _IS THAT MILES???_
> 
> _ARE YOU AND MILES KISSING?!_
> 
> _WHY ARE YOU AND MILES KISSING??!!_
> 
> _I’M CALLING YOU RIGHT AFTER I FINISH THIS BAGEL AND YOU BETTER PICK UP_

He snorts, laughs quietly, and then starts laughing even louder while clutching at his belly, lungs burning in exertion.

“Oh my fucking god,” he wheezes deliriously, thudding his forehead against the screen of his phone with his eyes squeezed tight, smile breaking across his face. “Talk about some fuckin’ blackmail material.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, bitch... this is another part to Blackmail Material that came about because someone asked for more of this. I am weak and also filled with Lunael love, so honestly I'd write anything for them, lmao. Anyway, so if you thought 20k of mostly smut was extraordinarily unnecessary, here's 36k+ of... whatever this is, because it's all over the place. Listen, I'm a mess and so are all of my fics and them's the breaks. Also there's gonna be two more chapters and now there's a, like... actually substantial plot line for this fic. Bless up. ([also here's a link to the tweets Michael's talking about in the 2016 part](http://68.media.tumblr.com/8354cdc1ddd8dd5e3e75b124748c4929/tumblr_inline_oq03jeJwUY1r1on79_400.png))
> 
> **NSFW tags for this chapter:**   
>  _Frottage × Praise Kink × Biting × Mentioned Pain Kink_

**2016**

Michael fucked up.

He was maybe a little drunk from recording a pretty brutal episode of Theater Mode, so he was trying to sober up on the couch in the VR room while the gents were filming a Let’s Watch. Gus was somewhere else and so was Jeremy, who was tasked with keeping an eye on him (he had to talk to Trevor about something, but Michael wasn’t necessarily _listening_ to him as he was explaining why and when he’d be back). 

So he was left alone. Drunk and in a bit of a mood from the awful movie he’d just sat through. With his phone. In his hand. Like, _right_ there.

And of course he ended up scrolling through his Twitter feed listlessly, bored out of his skull and nursing a tepid bottle of water — which is never something you want a drunk idiot (read: him) to do, because drunk people fucking love fucking shit up for no apparent reason other than for a splice of fun. And while scrolling through Twitter he saw a tweet that Miles retweeted. And he was drunk. And stupid. And… jealous.

So, okay, it’s been _years_. Michael barely even thinks about what happened anymore. He doesn’t remember any of it, is what he tells himself. He’s sure Miles definitely doesn’t even think about it, especially after that New Year’s party where Michael got even more drunk than he is now. It’s nothing. He’s never spoken about it to a single soul and no one’s brought it up to him, either.

So he has no fucking clue why the tweet pissed him off so much. Or maybe he does. Maybe he’s had to sit on the sidelines more times than he can count as his feed was flooded by people losing their minds over Miles kissing someone at the company. He’s seen gifs, screen captures, and has even been on stage as Miles cradled someone else’s face in his hands before pulling them in for a kiss. It’s not like this is a new occurrence. But this time he was indirectly involved.

Michael likes to think that he’d be defensive even if it wasn’t _Miles_ who was trying to pick a side between Achievement Hunter and Funhaus. That seeing Miles kissing Adam didn’t phase him at all. Nope. Michael has never been bothered by Miles’s tendency to kiss the men at the company, so he doesn’t have a care in the world.

But maybe Drunk Michael didn’t get the memo that Sober Michael’s been over this for years and that there was absolutely no need to dredge up the past. But Drunk Michael is a fucking asshole.

So he hit reply and started typing with an amount of self-importance he’d expect from those crooks at Wall Street, not himself. He hovered his thumb over the send button for only a second before hitting it, so annoyed that he didn’t even think about what he was doing. He nodded to himself after as he laid back on the couch and rested his phone down on his chest, feeling very righteous and proud of himself. He closed his eyes, so carefree.

_Beat that, Adam_ , he found himself thinking with a pleased smile on his face.

There was a quiet, hazy sort of tranquility in the air for a few minutes, and oh how peaceful those minutes were.

And then his eyes snap open.

“Oh, _fuck_ , god _damn_ it, what the _fuck_ did I just _do_?!” he cusses as he bolts upright, cheeks turning red as his face warms.

He scoops his phone up from his chest and covers his mouth as his Twitter updates and the notifications come in, a nervous tremor running through his fingers. He reads over what he just tweeted and has a moment of panicked delirium where he chokes out a short, boggling sort of wooden laugh with no depth. He’s fucked up so fucking bad.

He didn’t quote tweet it, so not a lot of people have actually seen it yet, but he still can’t delete it. There are already a handful of likes and someone’s even retweeted the damn thing. He doesn’t even have to check to know that there’s probably already a Reddit thread about the tweet, because the community takes screenshots of his tweets all the fucking time. There’s nothing that can be done, because he’d only incriminate himself further if he tried to just quietly delete it.

The tweet has already done damage and Michael’s never been so pissed off at himself in his entire fucking life. He never tweets when he’s drunk, but it figures that the one time he does it does more damage than accidentally posting a nude selfie would.

It’s not like it’s just an incredibly embarrassing tweet that he didn’t mean to send out. He’s embarrassing all the fucking time when he’s drunk, so that’s not something that would shatter the world around him. The problem here is Miles (doesn’t everything manage to lead back to Miles in his life?).

Miles’s Twitter handle was in his reply and Miles gets notifications whenever anyone he follows mentions him.

He knows that Miles is attached to his phone and loves using Twitter, was reading Miles’s tweets about the stream they were going to do just before he decided to be a fucking idiot and reply to that dumb picture of Adam and Miles. So Miles has definitely seen it already. But even if he hasn’t yet, there still won’t be anything Michael could do to stop him from finding out, because even deleting the tweet won’t keep him from seeing it on Reddit or having someone ask him about it on Twitter.

Michael wants to shoot himself in the fucking face as his heart sinks and sinks and _sinks_ like a fucking submarine.

It’s out of his hands now and there’s absolutely nothing he can do to save himself from this mess. He hits the back of the couch with a woosh of misplaced air and groans, eyes closing because he can’t stand to even _look_ at anything when he feels so awful, and resigns himself to the literal Hell he just opened up and stepped into. This is all his own damn fault.

He stays like that for over ten minutes, bitterly sipping on his water now and more sober than he was before he had even sat down to film Theater Mode. His brain’s been entirely too overactive about the whole thing, running through one outrageous scenario to the next of whatever confrontation this’ll bring about.

And then his phone buzzes, startles and terrifies him, makes his fingers clumsily slip a little as he tries more than once to open up his mentions. And he doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it’s Miles.

And Miles remembers. 

Michael’s heart gives out, whole body buzzing with a euphoric energy that overflows inside of him and has him trembling with a hand to his mouth.

Miles _still_ remembers.

•••

**2011**

Another roll of steam is birthed from the hot water spraying down Michael’s body and he sighs, the sound of it lilting and then going silent as the water snuffs it out. There’s steam fogging up the bathroom and plastering itself along his skin, almost suffocating him with how much of it there is in the air around him, and his heart is beating too fast to keep up with; he’s trying to ease the skip of it by taking long, measured breaths in, but it’s not working as well as it would be if he could just stop overthinking it. 

But the water pressure is good — one of the greatest feelings after last night — and is working wonders to relieve the sore muscles in his back and legs. All the tension has been seeping from his shoulders since he’s been in here until they’ve become loose and relaxed, finally settling back down from where they were all bunched up at his ears earlier when he’d stood stock still in the middle of his bedroom, staring in unnerving silence at his bed before he panicked and ended up locking himself in the bathroom.

He wasn’t hiding exactly, because he was going to take a shower anyway, but he wasn’t really _not_ hiding either.

But as it stands now he’s resting his forehead against the shower tiles, eyes closed as rivulets of water trickle over his eyelids and clump in his lashes. Water is pearling at the tip of his nose and dripping down to the porcelain of the tub floor at his feet and swirling down the drain as he lets the hot water wash away the remaining mess along his thighs, sweat and dried come disappearing down the drain like a magic trick.

When he opens his eyes to look down about himself he can see little yellow imprints blooming along his thighs from the rough way Miles had dug his fingers into them and four deep crescent shapes are still visible high along the more muscular curve of one of his thighs. Michael too vividly remembers Miles gripping at his thigh on instinct when Michael told him he wanted to be fingered open, nails biting into his skin unkindly just at that same spot, and Michael’s index finger draws a line across the span of them like he’s connecting the dots.

He presses his finger into one of the yellow bruises that are only just forming and watches mildly as his skin bleaches white around his fingertip before he pulls it away and the color floods back in. He raises his leg up and rests the ball of his foot just on the lip of the tub, toes curled up against the damp shower wall, water spraying his exposed thigh as he leans back instead of blocking the spray. The water hits particularly sharply at the bite mark high just under his inner thigh and even though he’s not hard the sensation makes his entire body throb, sensory memories flooding his brain and making him bite at his lip, snippets of Miles’s dirty talk playing on a loop in his head and making his ears burn.

_“Thank you for letting me touch you.”_

Michael can’t get it out of his head.

He feels odd, chest tight and head fuzzy, every part of his body heavy and pressed down upon like he’s thousands of feet below the ocean and can’t breathe without imploding. His stomach is all twisted up, but at the same time it’s loose; like his body can’t decide on which way is up and which way is down, flip flopping between one to the other on repeat. He’s enervated, worn out to the marrow in him, still just as dazed as he was last night.

Miles’s mouth seems to have roamed everywhere last night. He’s covered in hickeys along the backs of his thighs, his shoulders, his chest, at his throat. Some spots Michael couldn’t even see until he peered at himself (one eye closed, terrified for some reason by what he might see, the differences one night can make on a person seemingly endless in his mind) in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, just minutes after getting off the phone with Barbara.

He has more bite marks than just the one on his thigh, too; there’s a bite mark over his nipple, at the point between his shoulder and neck, and at the soft spot just under his left ear. Some of them are already disappearing without a fuss only a few hours later, but the one at the curve of his shoulder and neck has only started to become more apparent, skin blooming red, bruised and sore to the touch. Michael can’t stop prodding at it, hot flashes running through his body every time he pokes at where Miles’s canines dug in almost to the point of breaking the skin.

He reaches for the soap and gets the rag that’s slung over the caddy below the showerhead foamy before he starts scrubbing at his body for a second time since he got in the shower, leg dropping back to the bathtub floor, thighs pressing together tight with his toes curled over where they’re overlapping each other. He’s shivering even under the hot water as he soaps himself up, body hypersensitive everywhere still, erogenous zones along every part of him that Miles touched.

He washes the suds away without even touching his body, letting the water do all of the grunt work. It almost feels like a holy moment as he stands with his whole head under the water, sound muffled like this. Everything quieter. He takes a second and breathes through his mouth, water pooling at his cupid’s bow and spilling over past his lips, mouth filling with it.

And then he’s turning the shower off before he starts to overheat, the hot water starting to turn overwhelming the longer he stands there with his mind endlessly running itself into circles and his heart racing just from thinking about Miles. He pulls a towel off the rack and shudders and shakes as he dries off as much as he can, but his skin feels like it’s on fire and he can only handle so much contact when he’s like this.

He can’t believe how fucked up Miles has him.

He barely makes it out of his shower alive, huffing as he opens the bathroom door, steam flooding out into the empty hallway in thick puffs that edge up along the ceiling. He grips tightly onto the towel around his hips and softly pads his way to his room, soles of his feet damp along the hardwood floor. He hesitates by his door and turns back for only a moment to check to see if Jack’s door is still closed. It is.

He opens the door to his room quietly and shuts it more carefully than he’d hold a newborn baby, locking it behind himself just in case Jack wakes up earlier than he anticipates. Very pointedly, he heads straight towards his dresser, not looking over towards his bed. He pats his face dry, stray rivulets of water at his jaw, and then plops the towel on his head and rubs at his hair. He knows he’s not supposed to dry his hair like that because Kara says it causes damage, but he doesn’t really give a fuck about that right now — or, like, _ever_.

And then, like something ripped right out of a horror movie, Michael hears the bed let out a creak from behind him, a rustle, and he freezes, still holding the towel up to his hair and standing stark naked in the center of his room. He’s suddenly entirely too conscious of the drop of water travelling down from his hair and along the nape of his neck, slipping between his shoulderblades and running along the line of his spine like the ghosting brush of a fingertip. 

He blinks slowly at the wall, everything in the air immediately different now, his stomach swooping and his cheeks heating. He turns around just as slowly then, something extended and tense in the movement, strenuous like walking across a tightrope. His hands pull the towel away from his dripping hair to let it passively fall onto the floor in a way that’s uncharacteristically devoid of forethought or order; the disorganization will probably annoy him later, but for now his mind is blank and his body is doing what it wants without consulting him first, heart hammering away in his chest, all the air going out of his lungs.

There, languidly sprawled out on his stomach, right in the center of Michael’s stripped-down bed, lies Miles. He’s resting his smushed cheek on the wrist of his left arm while his other arm is under himself for warmth, the bedsheets still shoved haphazardly into the small laundry bin in the corner. His hair is wild and all tangled up from sleeping on his side most of the night and it’s coming off as heartbreakingly endearing in its boyishness, looking just as dangerously soft as it felt in Michael’s hands last night.

He stares for a long, drawn-out span of time in which he stands as unsteady but solid as a tree in a hurricane, not making a single noise in the complicated silence. There’s too much to say about how he feels then but nothing quite fits what the sight of Miles does to him. Nothing he can think to say out loud, either. Everything is rendered still and hushed, his heart swept under the rug. Miles takes the breath right out of Michael’s lungs, flips it, turns it into his own; Miles breathes in, chest expanding, shoulders rising, and Michael breathes in tandem with him.

When Michael finally manages to grapple the reigns of his subconscious and fully seize the trip of his heart and force it into submission, the rhythm of it steadying against where it’s beating along his sternum, he tears his eyes away from the almost delicate line of one of Miles’s ankles and looks towards Miles’s face in nervous anticipation.

Miles is smiling gently, just the hint of tongue peeking out between his lips as he licks at them, one eye cracked open from when he was spying on the damp expanse of Michael’s body shifting and twisting this way and that as he dried himself off.

“Took a shower without me?” Miles teases when he notices Michael’s gaze, his voice rough with sleep and as thick as molasses, almost too much for Michael to bear with at this early of an hour.

Michael could honestly cry over how at home Miles looks in his room. How soft and malleable he is with sleep. How well he fits in like he belongs here, all domestic and stretched out on Michael’s bed, knuckling sleep from his eyes and breathing softly, barely even moving like he has nowhere else he’d rather be.

Christ, Michael’s royally screwed.

“Yeah,” Michael manages to croak out, throat dry like he’s parched. “You were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you up or anything, so I just, um.” He swallows hard, looking around aimlessly for a moment, desperate to find something to latch onto and focus on before he’s inevitably back to watching Miles systematically destroy him just by yawning into his wrist and blinking up at him, all subdued edges and deliberate sedateness. “Um… took one alone,” he finishes.

Miles nods into his forearm understandingly, snuffling into the bed for a second, and then throws the arm that’s stuffed under him out and lets it dangle off of the bed as he motions for Michael with two fingers. 

“C’mere,” he instructs mildly, voice muffled slightly by the bed.

Michael’s pulse speeds up and — without even pausing to think about it — he takes an unsteady amount of steps forward on weak knees until the tips of Miles’s fingers graze against his thigh. A shock runs through his body at the contact and turns him to stone, freezing in place abruptly as though pacified while his heart is somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. He holds his breath, not risking making a single sound, pulse surging and tripping clumsily at the lightest touch. 

This doesn’t even feel real.

Miles turns his hand into Michael’s skin, the backs of his knuckles sliding up Michael’s leg in what has to be intentionally sensual, because Michael refuses to believe that Miles doesn’t know that what he’s doing is making Michael go weak and drooping. His gaze is devastatingly hot and heavy as it roves over Michael’s thighs and then up higher, taking in every mark on Michael’s body like he’s cataloguing all of it for later. 

Miles drags his knuckles back down Michael’s thigh with an alluring gentleness, drawing the sweep of his hand across Michael’s skin out, inch by inch, like he’s stretching time out to make these few seconds last hours, years, so long Michael’s worried he’d have to measure it out in unabridged spans of life. It’s absolutely maddening. Michael’s whole body is vibrating with it, trembling so minutely he himself barely even notices it, goosebumps rising all along his arms.

Moving painstakingly slow, Miles is taking his time, unwinding Michael with nothing more than the backs of his fingers; the persistent tension in Michael’s shoulders leaks from him, oozes out of him like a sludge, the twist in his gut subsides, and Miles is there to catch him if his knees choose now to give out and slump him forward. And it’s purposeful, everything about Miles like this so calculated and careful even when he’s got messy bedhead and a muted sort of drowsiness sloping his eyes, indolence in the line of his body. Pressing, brushing, so gentle and soft that Michael’s overwrought with it, could double over at any moment. 

It’s like he’s been caught up in a windstorm, being blown away like the easily besotted fool he is, and all Miles is doing is _touching_ him. It’s all too much and he feels almost like he’s being made into a spectacle, breathing a little bit too harshly just from some innocent touching, the act of it boundless and intoxicating.

This, Michael thinks, is the kind of unquestioning and unspoken intimacy and submission that people start whole wars over. The kind of pleasure that turns people into full-time hedonists. An open curiosity, a hunger that leaves you starving. Michael could lose himself in this, in the simple labor of Miles’s hand on his thigh, like it’s impossible for him to wean himself off of it already after only having seconds of it, any more and he’d likely swoon.

The pad of Miles’s thumb strokes along the outline of Michael’s knee without a word shared between either of them, the only audible noise resulting from the brush of Miles’s hand along the faint hair on Michael’s leg and the occasional stuttering hitch in Michael’s breath. Miles takes a deep breath in and Michael follows suit.

And then, in an abrupt snap, Miles’s hand hooks around the back of Michael’s knee and tugs him forward unexpectedly, a shocking show of vitality as Miles tries to pull Michael closer. 

Michael stumbles a little and his knees hit the edge of the bed, his breath leaving him all in one gasp. Miles’s fingers curl around Michael’s leg as he leans over, up on his elbow now, to kiss the center of Michael’s thigh, lips soft on his skin and too tender for Michael to be breathing properly. Michael’s hands drop to hang limply down at his sides after having pinwheeled in the air for balance, fingers twitching until they curl into tight fists that shake only just a little.

“So beautiful,” Miles is saying as he pulls his lips away, hand moving up high on Michael’s thigh so he can rub his thumb over a yellow bruise there. His voice is full of wonder as he whispers, “Just look at you,” and noses along Michael’s inner thigh.

Michael feels so light headed he thinks he might just black out, the way Miles kisses at his skin almost cruel when he’s still so sensitive.

His hands raise slowly, cautious and unsure, before he places them in Miles’s hair. He wishes he could say that he doesn’t immediately curl his fingers into Miles’s hair and hold on like he needs to touch Miles to know this is actually happening, except that’s exactly what he does and why he does it. He bites his lip to keep from breathing a sigh of relief when the world doesn’t fade to black as he wakes up from some fairytale dream where he gets to have this — Miles touching him with a warmth that makes his whole body feel all boneless and burning — for as long as he wants.

“You smell like soap, it‘s good,” Miles tells him, murmuring as he brushes his lips and beard into Michael’s leg like he’s a cat rubbing up against its owner. “Soft, too. You’re so warm. Feels nice.”

Michael thinks that if he felt any more buzzed than he does right this second, right as Miles kisses a line across the middle of this thigh, he quite possibly could turn into a puddle and slip through Miles’s grasp.

“Thanks,” he says lamely, not knowing how else to accept Miles’s compliments. His voice doesn’t crack and he’s thankful for at least having that one semblance of control over himself.

“You’re welcome, man,” Miles says without missing a beat. “Sorry I was still sleeping when you got up. I didn’t know you wake up so early or I would’ve tried to wake up with you.”

“No that’s… that’s fine. You didn’t have to be.” His voice is quiet, so hushed it’s like he’s telling Miles a secret.

“But I wanted to. It would’ve been nice to see how you look after just waking up. I’ve never really seen you sleep before, either.” An awkward beat from Miles. “Wow… that sounds all kinds of creepy when I say it out loud, doesn’t it?” Miles asks, laughing a little into Michael’s leg.

Michael doesn’t know what to say to that, can’t even manage a laugh. He feels like he’s on the verge of combusting and all Miles is doing is holding onto Michael’s leg with his forehead resting on Michael’s thigh and his lips skimming over Michael’s skin as he talks. But it’s really too much, everything too muted and soft, light lines breaking through from the blind slats on the window beside his bed and separating Miles’s lower body in strips of warm sunlight, dust motes in the air when the light catches a certain way.

His heart is going wild, hands still curled in Miles’s hair, legs weak and begging for him to just climb on the bed or risk falling over. But he doesn’t want to move even a fraction of an inch, doesn’t want to break this moment between him and Miles.

Miles is so unguarded and open, the line of his body utterly content, the mess of his hair chaotic but charming, the soft curve of his mouth undemanding and warm. Miles’s hands are attentive all along Michael’s body as he brushes everywhere he marked Michael up like he did it all on purpose just for this moment of gratification and almost indulgent worship, his fingers skimming up along one of Michael’s thighs and lining up perfectly with the grape sized bruises there. 

Miles looks up at him then, meeting Michael’s eyes, and smiles so gently it turns Michael’s heart as fragile as spun sugar. And Michael is quite possibly on the verge of tears. Terrifyingly close to flying apart as his head spins wildly like he’s stuck on one of those spinning teacup rides at an amusement park and it’s all because of Miles.

“Sorry,” he says for lack of anything else to say as he cuts his eyes away, a small mercy on his rapidly beating heart.

Sorry he’s a mess. Sorry he can’t think properly. Sorry he can’t even look at Miles for more than a second without being worried he’ll give away everything, reveal just how desperate he is to seek refuge in the circle of Miles’s arms and never leave.

“Hey,” Miles ventures carefully, ducking his head as he tries to catch Michael’s lowered gaze. The plush of his mouth is so lenient and kind when he smiles up at him that Michael doesn’t know what to do with himself. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s not that serious, you know? It’s not like you never sleep, so I’ve got all the opportunities I need, right? _Nope_. Yeah, no, no, okay, that still sounds _just_ as creepy. Only that Edward Cullen guy can get away with shit like that without breaking the Creep-O-Meter. But whatever, what I’m trying to say is that it’s okay, sweetheart. No harm, no foul.”

Michael breathes out harshly at that, squeezing his eyes closed for a second, his hands tugging at Miles’s hair and almost pulling him closer.

He normally hates nicknames, hates too much intimacy outside of the times when he’s trying to get off, hates feeling like he’s not the one in charge. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t mind any of that even half as much when Miles is involved.

“Okay,” he mumbles, a quiet lilt to his voice, almost sounding sad.

He’s not, though, even when there’s the undertone of something heart-rendering to the way he starts carding his hands a bit too slowly through Miles’s hair for something to occupy his mind with. Even if he feels like everything else is a little sad. Not in a really substantial way, just that he knows Miles is going to have to stop touching him eventually and that Michael can’t stand there forever, but he really doesn’t want this to end. He doesn’t want Miles to stop looking at him.

Miles is raising up on his hand now instead of his elbow, body stretching up so his other hand can move from Michael’s thigh to hold onto his shoulder for a second, and then he slips it over to cup the back of Michael’s neck. Miles presses his lips to the center of Michael’s stomach, just above his navel, and his beard leaves a trail of newly pinkening skin in his wake as he kisses up Michael’s chest.

“You’re so good for me, you know that?” Miles tells him from somewhere around his collarbone, voice as sweet as honey and sincere enough to be boggling.

“Are you trying to make me cry?”

Miles pulls back suddenly with a wide-eyed, startled look coming over his face, Michael’s hands slipping from his hair.

“What?”

Michael has no idea why he can’t just keep his mouth shut. His hands clench and tighten around nothing, tingling from the sensory memory of Miles’s hair brushing through his fingers.

“Just... um,” he says unhelpfully as he stares at the confused pout of Miles’s lips, the dizzying shine to them from where he was mouthing at Michael’s skin. “You’re doing that thing you did last night. The complimenting thing.”

Miles blinks, looks about himself, and then realization sets in on his face in a wash. 

“Oh, _shit_ , Michael. I’m so sorry, man, I-I completely forgot you had, like, a thing about this,” Miles says with feeling, rushing to resituate himself on the bed and move his legs out from under him and onto the floor. He’s clearly flustered. “I was just saying whatever was coming to mind and wasn’t really thinking. Like, I wasn’t trying to— I was just, like— just… I wasn’t trying to do anything funny. Sorry.”

Miles is fully up and sitting on the edge of the bed now all proper like with Michael standing there between his knees. Both of Miles’s hands had found their way to Michael’s neck when he switched positions, his thumbs pressed up at the shadows under Michael’s jawline like he wanted to keep Michael from going anywhere. He’s watching Michael’s face closely now to make sure he hasn’t sizably offended him, gaze careful as he looks from Michael’s eyes to the worry of his brow.

“It’s okay,” Michael finds himself saying without any real introspection on the words, syllables giving his throat rugburn with the force and speed it takes as he hurries to get them out like his life depends on it, uncomfortable with how serious Miles is treating this.

“Sure, maybe it is, but are _you_?”

He opens his mouth to answer that he’s fine — because he’s always fine — but then he snaps it closed, brain scrambling as he fumbles for the words.

“I…” Michael doesn’t know what to say. “I don’t— I don’t, I mean, I—”

Miles pulls back further, frowning, his hands leaving Michael’s neck and making Michael want to yell until he’s blue in the face and Miles is touching him again in that maddening, contaminating way of his.

“Yes,” he insists with a fierce pull of his brows together, forcing himself to keep his hands to himself even when he wants to catch Miles’s palms in his own and press them to the skin of his hips. “I’m _fine_. Stop looking at me like that. _Jesus_ , Miles. It’s like you think I’m about to break in half or something like I’m a sensitive fucking flower that’s never had sex before. I’m A-O-fuckin’-‘kay.”

Miles eyes him up carefully with a thin purse of his lips, gaze steady and hyper-critical. It’s an agonizing couple of seconds before he finally looks away and when he does Michael’s lungs bloat up after having shrivelled up like a raisin in the sun, this close to collapsing into dust. Miles thumbs at his brow and looks at a point just beyond Michael’s ear before he sighs, sitting up straighter and looking at Michael again.

“Okay, then.”

“That it?” Michael poses, aggressively defensive for some reason. “You’re not going to, like, annoy the shit out of me until I say something different?”

“I’m not going to force you to talk if you don’t want to.”

“So we’re just doing what I want, then?”

“It’s always been about what you want, Michael,” Miles tells him like it’s obvious, something that hadn’t even needed to be said, a universal truth.

And that floors him, throws him straight out of the realm of reasonable thinking and drops him off right on his ass in that magical alternate universe where the earth is as flat as a penny, One Direction won The X Factor, and Michael gets to have this, have Miles, for however long he wants. And, _Christ_ , does he want that. He wants so urgently, so awfully, that his heart is engorged with it, all of its valves and innerworkings struggling to cough out beat after too fast beat as Michael watches Miles in wonderment.

_God_ , he’s never been filled with such unbridled greed in his whole life; words like ‘hope’ and ‘wish’ and ‘need’ festering like a poison that wreaks havoc on his insides, blood boiling with it.

He wants so much. Everything, maybe. Wants to have Miles turn him inside out, hold him down under a magnifying glass, pin him to the wall and pull out all the bad that’s suffused with his heart and replace it with something new, and full, and inexhaustible. He wants Miles to touch him; to slide, and grind, and slip, and roll, and press, and hitch, and hold, and bite, and fuck him. Really _fuck_ him. Just suffocate him with every ripple of pleasure and pain and that sickly sweet mix between the two that twists Michael’s stomach up and makes it difficult for him to breathe.

He’s never been like this before. This needy, maybe. Reckless. Filled to the brim and overflowing with a sense of greed and almost righteous ownership; like this is unequivocally his, this moment and this opportunity. This uninhibited want.

And there’s something off about it, because any other time in any other scenario he’d be telling Miles — or anyone else, really — to get off him, to stop touching him. But it’s different now. Things are different with a capital _D_ , Different. Because a guy has never touched him like that before. Because _Miles_ has never touched him the way he did last night, let alone kissed him. There was an intent there, something fast, and hot, and overwhelming. The knotted and angry heat low in Michael’s belly left to boil over like water in a pot on the stove until he had to do something about it.

And now he can’t stand the thought of Miles looking at anyone else except for him. He doesn’t want Miles to stop touching him, even, or he worries he might die or fade away and out of the already delicate existence he finds himself hanging in when the sun is just barely eking out the first bright overture of the morning.

He isn’t a touchy person and isn’t a fan of a lot of contact, finds it to be unnecessary most of the time, but there’s that new Difference — mind the capital _D_ — that has him staring at Miles’s hands with his impossibly dry tongue stuck stubbornly to the roof of his mouth. Normalcy is definitely lacking now.

And so, with his throat fluttering with the thrum of his quickened pulse, Michael finds himself shifting and looking away from Miles’s heavy stare and distracting hands. His voice, when he can manage to talk with the kind of abandon he only ever summons up for when he’s feeling particularly brave and a bit stingy, is so loud to his own ears that it boggles him for a moment.

“Can I…” He stops himself, minds his voice, and tries again, “Can I have a kiss? I mean, like, ‘cause this is about what I want or whatever the fuck.”

Miles’s reply is instant, obvious.

“You can have anything you want from me.”

And that is… that is way too dangerous for Michael to think about, let alone question just what ‘anything’ entails.

“Then I want one,” he tells Miles, only allowing his voice to waver just slightly before he catches himself. He has to clear his throat quickly, annoyed by the watery lilt of his voice. This time, more direct and sure of himself, he says, “I want you to kiss me.”

“Well c’mere, then,” Miles suggests with a widespread motion of his hands, voice holding a little teasing edge to it.

Miles’s face does that awful thing again that makes Michael’s stomach twist and heat unfurl from the center of his itchy palms and throughout the rest of his body: he smiles that megawatt smile of his. It’s brilliant and broad and a touch too cocky for Michael’s taste — normally he’s the cocky one — but Michael still feels it to the marrow in him and then deeper, impossibly deeper, until he swears he can feel his soul glowing hot from inside of him in response.

He licks his lips in a mix of nerves and anticipation, eyes restless as he looks for any hint of trepidation in Miles’s face before he kisses him. Like maybe Miles is just joking and any second now he’ll tell Michael this was all just some drunken one night stand thing and he regrets it just like Michael thought he would. Like it was a mistake. Like maybe Michael should lose his number and forget this ever happened.

Michael doesn’t have to move any closer, already right up in Miles’s space and between Miles’s spread legs, so it’s entirely too easy for him to lean down. Except he doesn’t. He stands there feeling foolish and can’t will himself to make the first move. He can’t get his body to cooperate and just grab Miles’s face and kiss him like he wants to, to bite at Miles’s jaw and the sweet curl of his lips.

Miles must notice that he’s seemingly unable to function properly, because he cants his head to the side and asks, “Uh, Ground Control to Major Tom? You there, man? You want me to come to you?”

What Michael wants is for Miles to consume him whole.

Michael doesn’t think that’s necessarily the right thing to say in this situation, but considering it’s the only thing he can think, he opts to just nod instead of opening his mouth (he figures that a lot of his problems in life could be solved by keeping his trap shut, actually).

Miles places a hand on Michael’s cheek at that, his thumb brushing fleetingly down the center of Michael’s wet lips before it trails lower, and then he’s got Michael’s chin between the curl of his fingers and thumb. And though Michael expects for Miles to pull him down, Miles ends up surprising him by raising himself up (a bit awkwardly, considering his position) to reach Michael, nose brushing against Michael’s cheek before he places a gentle kiss to Michael’s lips.

And that’s it.

Literally.

Miles drops back down on the bed, lets go of Michael’s chin, and Michael knows he must look just as bewildered as he feels, his lips puckered and his eyes opening slowly, brow furrowed in confusion. That was one of the most chaste kisses Michael’s ever been on the receiving end of and he’s from Jersey, meaning all of his aunts have a penchant for pecking him on the mouth with their bright red lipsticks leaving smudges behind during holidays and get-togethers as a greeting.

Miles is grinning cheekily up at him.

“There’s more where that came from, but if you want the rest of these goodies you’ll just have to come down here for it. I know you’ve got some fight in you, tiger. C’mon.”

Miles puts his hands out behind him, leaning back on his palms, and Michael is all too aware of the fact that Miles is very, _very_ naked. Well, they’re both naked, but Miles is the one stretching back and showing off… well, _everything_. And that’s definitely not leaving any room for interpretation on what his “goodies” are exactly. And, _boy_ , Miles sure is an early riser. Michael almost wants to make a joke about it, but he can’t think of anything clever to say when he just wants to kiss Miles until his lips hurt and his jaw is too worn out for actual speaking.

“I thought this was about what I want,” Michael quips, trying to keep his voice level and his eyes on Miles’s face. He’s struggling with both.

“‘Course it is, yeah, but I have to make you work for it a bit, don’t I? Can’t just let you get everything you want without putting in any work. Don’t want to spoil you rotten.”

Michael huffs, but his body’s finally cooperating with him — which probably has something to do with the fact that Miles is bantering with him now and the air no longer feels like it’s going to smother him under the thick layers of tension.

“You’re a fuckin’ prick,” he tells Miles, but his hand finds itself on Miles’s bare thigh anyway as he inches close enough to place his knee on the bed.

His hand flits up from Miles’s thigh to his chest and Miles raises his brows, watching him mildly as he climbs on top of him. Or, well, _tries to,_ at least, because somehow his knee manages to amateurly knock into Miles’s stomach as he’s clambering into Miles’s lap, which makes Miles laugh, and then Miles covers the knee that just assaulted him with one hand and maneuvers Michael fully over his lap without causing Michael to do any more damage to him.

Which is honestly mortifying. The _one_ time in Michael’s life that he needed to be cool and sexy and he goes and knees Miles in the stomach. Incredible. Michael rolls his eyes up to look at the ceiling for a second to both collect himself and also have a few choice words with any and all higher forms of beings about appropriate timing.

“My bad,” he says eventually, though Miles appears like he really doesn’t think an apology is necessary. “I guess I need to step my mounting game up.”

“Your ‘mounting game?’” Miles parrots with a small, mocking smile. Miles makes a playful tiger-like growling noise and though Michael knows Miles only does it to get him to laugh the only thing it succeeds in doing to him is make his heartbeat ramp up and his palms get sweaty.

He licks his lips and chooses to go for anger over embarrassment. “Shut the hell up. I’m supposed to be kissing you right now so don’t even fucking start. I don’t have time for this.”

Miles shrugs apathetically, completely removing the hand that had began to trail up from Michael’s knee to his thigh and placing it back behind himself on the bed. It seems like a get-on-with-it-then gesture, so Michael readies himself and fits both hands over Miles’s cheeks, beard scratchy in his palms and more unkempt than the day before.

Miles doesn’t look away from Michael’s face as Michael leans closer in, which has all the color in Michael’s cheeks rising, so he closes his eyes tightly instead of having to explicitly look at Miles. It’s easier to do this when he’s not looking. It makes things feel a lot less intimidating and consequential, but Miles has to go and ruin it just as Michael’s close enough for their breath to mingle.

“Atta boy, Michael,” Miles whispers at a low enough register to make Michael’s skin prickle, their lips dragging across each other’s as he says it, and Michael’s eyes fly open in shock at the throatiness of it, pulling back in a snap.

Miles’s eyes are low but still open just enough to gaze at Michael’s mouth and Michael’s hips rock forward as an afterthought to the shock of his words, spine alight with chills in an instant. He makes a noise, breathy but sharp, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight, not capable enough to deal with the way Miles isn’t even shy about still having his eyes open.

_This is fuckin’ stupid,_ he thinks, _just fucking kiss the guy and move on with it. This isn’t fucking rocket science. A plus B equals put your goddamn tongue in his mouth_.

He listens to Miles breathing, proximal and easy to melt into. Miles breathes in, breathes out. Michael trails after him, a breath in, a breath out. Steady.

He presses his forehead against Miles’s, holds himself there for a moment to let himself acclimate to the flare of arousal from Miles’s words, his encouragement. He breathes in deep, exhales, and then he’s dragging his thumb along Miles’s bottom lip in a question that Miles answers by dropping his mouth open. Miles’s breath fans out warm over Michael’s thumb and Michael means to kiss him. He really does, honestly. However, instead of kissing Miles he finds himself curiously pushing his thumb inside of Miles’s mouth, the pad of it sliding over the wet — _god, it’s so wet,_ he thinks blearily, marvelling and pressing down harder — and broad plush of Miles’s tongue.

Miles makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, surprised by the turn of events, but he doesn’t falter in closing his mouth around Michael’s thumb and _sucking_ like he knows exactly what it’ll remind Michael of from last night. And Miles’s mouth is so much hotter when it’s tight around him, so much more wet, soaking the pad of his thumb with saliva, and Michael’s breath gushes out of him like he’s been punched. He dips his chin and opens his eyes because he has to, there’s no way he could keep himself from watching Miles’s lips wrap around his thumb, and Miles is _still_ fucking watching him. 

It’s maddening, too much, and Michael cusses, hips rocking forward again like it’s second nature to him. And the sensation of Miles’s cheeks hollowed out around him, pliant and accepting of the intrusion of his thumb like he can take so much more than just that, has Michael’s heart tripping over itself and stalling, breath rattling in his chest. That same liquid heat from last night pools in his gut like lava, sets his senses on fire, and he has to pull his thumb out of Miles’s mouth before he ends up making a fool of himself by getting hard again.

Saliva trails out from Miles’s mouth as he pops out his thumb and Michael doesn’t even stop to let Miles catch up with what’s happening before he presses in, eyes squeezing shut, lips brushing against Miles’s, and Miles hums when he does it. It’s chaste at first and he allows it to be, his mouth closed and the kiss mostly dry except for Miles’s bottom lip. He angles his head to the other side and kisses Miles again, a little more wetly but still chaste, feeling it when Miles presses up, trying to get more from him.

He pulls away to breathe, lips slick, and revels in the sound of Miles’s heavy breathing, clearly the more affected one here. Michael wants to keep it that way, keep Miles out of his depth so Michael’s not the only one that’s nervous, so he surges back down when Miles breathes out and this time when he opens Miles’s mouth with his tongue there’s nothing chaste about it. He pushes his tongue in, licking at the roof of Miles’s mouth, sucking on his tongue, doing anything he can to get deeper, make Miles lose a bit of that control he has.

It’s messy, wet, and a little filthy when Michael’s hands frame Miles’s face again just so he can press his thumbs at the corners of Miles’s mouth to get him to open wider. Miles makes another noise at that that Michael revels in, something sweeter and higher than before, a bit raspier. He feels it too as he licks into Miles’s mouth again, feels the reverberation of Miles’s moan on his tongue and in his own throat as they kiss and kiss and kiss. It’s endless, a lifetime of tongues and lips and Miles making these noises that Michael wants to record and listen to until he’s senile and his hearing’s gone to shit.

Miles’s hand comes from out of nowhere to curve around Michael’s neck, thumb and index finger tugging at the hair there, wrist resting on the slope of Michael’s shoulder. Miles is so tactile with him, always grabby, wanting to touch him everywhere and all the time. The thing about that is that Miles has always been like that, always touching him at every turn in their friendship. 

Michael’s never met a more touchy person and normally, before last night, Michael would tell him to get the fuck off of him without fail. Every single time. Even when they met in person for the first time at RTX and Miles came barreling up to him for a hug, happy to finally meet “the Rage Quit Guy” and thrilled that Michael was singing along with him to the Pokemon theme song. Miles would sway into him while laughing at something and Michael would shove him off, cheeks hot, temper soaring through the roof.

It’s only now that Michael is hit with the realization that it was a defense mechanism of his the whole time.

He pulls away just a little to breathe again and Miles’s breath shutters out of him. Miles inhales loudly, breathing labored and watery, and Michael smiles, satisfied. Michael doesn’t take long at all before he’s pressing back again, one hand slipping from Miles’s scruffy cheek to grab under his jaw and bring him closer for another kiss.

“Your hair’s still wet,” Miles notes in between kisses, breathless, fingers working into Michael’s hair.

“Yeah.” 

“Should’ve dried it.”

“Yeah, probably,” he agrees passively, brow furrowing in concentration as he tries to get Miles to shut up so he can kiss him again.

“Could catch a cold,” Miles warns, voice miraculously managing to sound concerned while Michael bites at his lip.

“Not really.”

“Ya’ sure?”

“That’s—” he kisses the corner of Miles’s mouth, Miles turning into it until Michael’s kissing him square on again “—not how that works.”

“But you could.”

“Fucking, _christ_ , Miles, shut _up_. I’m just trying to get my tongue down your throat can you stop talking about my hair?” Michael says as he pulls back, eyes opening and burning as he glares at Miles.

Miles blinks at him puzzledly, mouth open and red, spit-slick and swollen. Michael has the common decency to feel bad for a moment as Miles stares blankly back at him due to his outburst. But then he’s reminded that Miles is an _asshole_ and should never be shown any common decency, because instead of looking hurt Miles’s face breaks out into a grin.

“Feisty, aren’t we?” Miles teases, using his free hand to wipe at his mouth.

“No. I just don’t see the point in talking about my hair when we’re in the middle of making out,” Michael tells him matter-of-factly, hands leaving Miles’s face to cross over his chest.

“I was making conversation.”

“Yeah, while my goddamn tongue was in your mouth?”

Miles shrugs. “I mean, yeah. Gotta check in every now and then. Ask about the weather, y’know.”

“Miles, just a thought here, but when someone’s trying to fuckin’ kiss you you don’t really _need_ to check in with them.”

“Did I mess up your groove?” Miles questions with a raise of his brow, obviously finding this amusing if the smile on his lips is anything to go by.

“You messed up my everything, dude.”

“Ouch,” Miles says with feeling. He places his hand to his chest, right over his heart. “I’m sensitive, Michael, play nice with me.”

Michael rolls his eyes.

Miles watches him for a moment, still smiling. “You want to go back to kissing, don’t you?”

“No fucking shit, Miles.”

“Naughty,” Miles tsks, hands finding their way to Michael’s thighs.

“You realize you’re annoying the shit out of me right now, right?” Michael asks. “Like, this isn’t doing anything for me. It’s not charming.”

Michael is seconds away from standing up, opening his door, and kicking Miles out. Except not really. The thought passes by briefly before Michael squashes it so quickly it’s a little embarrassing, absolutely no dignity in how much teasing Miles could get away with before Michael would actually do something about it.

“Now I’m no detective or nothing, just a regular dude working at a machinima company, but are you really upset just because you couldn’t get to third base with me?” 

Michael huffs and resolutely doesn’t answer him. Fuck Miles. Fuck Miles and his stupid fucking everything. Michael hates him.

“Are you giving me the silent treatment? Because I wouldn’t stop talking? Really? Didn’t bother you that much last night.”

Michael rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and has to will himself to block out every single memory that _that_ brings to mind.

“Oh, come on. All you have to do is ask, baby. You want me?” Miles suggests, antsy at Michael’s silence, his hands starting to slide up and down Michael’s thighs. Michael grits his teeth to keep from shivering. “Go ahead, tell me. I’ll listen. What d’ya’ want, hm? I’ll be quiet this time.”

Michael thinks on it for a second, knows that Miles is just doing all of this to rile him up. The sick fuck probably just wants Michael to curse at him again. He knows that. Miles is only teasing him, just wants to get a reaction that he’s used to from Michael.

But Michael inhales deeply and says, sotto voce, “I want to keep kissing you.”

There’s a space of silence, the quiet crawling around them and making Michael’s jaw clench the longer it stretches out. Miles watches him, the suggestion of kissing held aloft, and Michael commits himself to meeting Miles’s gaze, doesn’t let himself draw back from the attention.

Finally, Miles licks at his lips, heavy-lidded eyes going down to Michael’s mouth, and says simply, “Good.”

Miles surges up then, hands dragging Michael closer by the backs of his knees, but instead of kissing Michael his teeth end up at Michael’s right ear, biting on his earlobe. Michael keens, can’t help it, and stretches his neck to the side to give Miles more room. And Miles isn’t one to ignore an opportunity so it’s no surprise that Miles drags his teeth down the column of Michael’s throat, kissing at his Adam’s apple, sucking another light bruise into his skin.

There’s not going to be a decent way to explain the hickeys and bite marks all over him to anyone that asks. The second someone else gets a good look at him they’re going to know exactly what he’d been up to the night before. Everyone will know he got fucked. Six other people specifically will probably know exactly who by as well, already having seen the prelude to the main attraction.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Michael breathes raggedly, hands tangling in Miles’s hair now, his thoughts running endlessly at a mile a minute.

Miles hums in the back of his throat in reply but doesn’t pull away from where he’s got his mouth on Michael’s collarbone, hands brushing up Michael’s sides. Michael can feel himself swaying, going weak, leaning further and further into Miles’s space subconsciously, just wanting to get closer. His lungs are burning, breath cloistering up in his chest, panting too hard to breathe properly. He swallows dryly, feels the spike of arousal in his groin flaring out the longer Miles draws this out, the longer he keeps playing with him.

When Miles licks along his throat Michael knows exactly what Miles is about to do — practically a signature move at this point — but the shock of Miles setting his teeth into Michael’s skin still makes him jerk, whole body spasming and moving all at once, a complete conscious meltdown, his hips rocking into Miles. His fists tug in Miles’s hair of their own volition, pulling Miles’s head back and soliciting a groan from him as Michael tugs Miles’s mouth away from his throat. And he doesn’t even pause before he lets go of Miles’s hair to shove at his shoulders and force Miles back on the bed, Michael following after him and curling his body over Miles’s. 

He fits his palms around Miles’s face, listening with no small amount of satisfaction as Miles lets out a puff of shaky breath from suddenly landing on his back, and then he’s leaning down until his breath fans out over Miles’s chin. All of his patience is worn thin now as he bites at Miles’s mouth, pries until Miles is opening up for him pliantly and letting loose a soft, whining noise that ricochets around Michael’s head as Michael takes anything he can from Miles, kissing him like he’ll die without it. Miles’s hands are back on Michael’s back and in his hair now, twisting tight in his curls and scratching at his back, paying Michael back triple of what he just gave him.

Michael’s pressing the full weight of himself down on Miles to keep him pinned to the bed and not letting up in the slightest when Miles tries to strain upwards into the kiss, trying to get more. Michael doesn’t want to be nice anymore, doesn’t want to give Miles more than he deserves after biting him like that, so he raises up and looks down at Miles under him, flushed and left wanting more. There’s a sick sort of satisfaction thrumming in Michael’s chest as he watches Miles try to follow after him blindly, chasing Michael’s mouth but not getting it.

Miles lets out a noisy, trembling breath as Michael pulls away, eyes fluttering open in surprise. It takes him a long moment to catch his breath and right his thoughts, hands falling to Michael’s thighs again when Michael raises up and away from him.

“Wow. Okay,” Miles chokes out, visibly shook up. His whole face is as ripe as a tomato. “Someone sure likes being on top, huh? Think you should maybe cool it down there, el tigre?”

“Shouldn’t’ve been a prick,” he tells Miles casually, inwardly proud of how controlled his breathing is despite his heart hammering away in his chest.

“Hey, man, you seemed like you didn’t mind a bit of teasing last night.”

Michael’s cheeks flare hot again, having to slam his eyes closed for a moment to will away the onslaught of Miles’s dirty talk that that calls to mind unwanted.

_“Gonna cry for me again, baby?”_

He thinks he really does hate him.

“Shut up,” he quips back lamely.

Miles makes a whole show of looking down at Michael’s body, pausing, a curve of his lips, and then he’s looking back up and catching Michael’s eyes, saying smugly, “Yeah, man, you’re raring to go. You like it.”

Michael glares and starts moving back, climbing off of Miles without saying another word. Miles lifts up as he goes, back to sitting upright at the edge of the bed. Michael’s aware of Miles’s eyes following after him as he crosses over to the other side of the room and leans down to grab the towel off of the floor. He turns back to Miles, towel in hand, and exaggeratingly plops the towel on his head, eyebrows raising as if to say, _“Happy now?”_

The puzzled look that had found its way onto Miles’s face when Michael climbed off of him switches gears, turns into pure delight, and then Miles is howling with laughter, laugh lines at his eyes, nose scrunched up like a bunny. He curls his arm around his face, burying it in his inner elbow, and tries fruitlessly to stifle the sudden bout of giggles Michael’s given him. 

Jack’s still asleep and it’s hard not to remember that as Miles cackles like a madman, but it’s also hard to give a fuck about Jack hearing them when Miles looks that sugary sweet and utterly overjoyed with Michael. He’s wheezing now like Michael’s just told him the funniest joke he’s ever heard and Michael’s heart goes watery and warm at the sight of Miles laughing at him.

He’s shaking his head at Miles’s obnoxious giggling while he towels at his hair, rubbing at his curls to dry them, and Miles’s laughter dies down in slow increments. Until, finally, it’s quiet again, the towel covering Michael’s eyes and hiding his face from Miles. There’s a suffocating hush, the air going out of the room, and Michael’s suddenly hit with the same nervousness from before. The same wave of panic that scared Michael into hiding out in the shower rearing its head; panic over what to do with Miles in his room, of how to cope with what happened last night. 

What does this mean for their friendship? Does this mean Michael’s gay? How does he know if this is real? Will Miles stop talking to him after this because it’s too weird? Does he have to tell people that he might be gay now? He doesn’t have the answers to any of this. He wasn’t prepared for what would happen afterwards, the changes one night has on their relationship — on how Michael perceives his sexuality. 

He’s never questioned what he was before now, because everyone else determined it for him, checked him down as straight and then moved on. He can’t just change lanes now, can he? Has he always been in a different lane this whole time? He’s twenty-four, don’t people usually have this figured out by now? Is he lying to himself? Did he never notice an attraction to men before or was he just repressing any feelings before? Is Miles confused about what any of this means too?

His stomach is rolling, the mounting panic getting to him, and if his mouth were any more dry than it is then he’d worry his tongue might break off and turn to sand.

The bed makes a noise but Michael refuses to pull the towel off of his head and look at Miles. His ears warming, the back of his neck and his cheeks scalding and flushed, and he can’t look anywhere but down at his feet, hands clutching at the towel. The floor creaks and before he knows it Miles draws right up to him, Miles’s feet coming into view in front of Michael. Michael looks up to Miles’s knees, but the towel blocks out anything else, a barrier that saves Michael from having to meet Miles’s eyes head-on.

Miles has a freckle just below his right knee. Michael can’t focus on anything else other than that or he might cry or scream or _something_. Everything is just too much, the silence too loud, the air suffocating him. So much he’s feeling doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t quite fit in with what he perceives of the real world, of what he’s thought he always knew about himself.

“Hey,” Miles says after a sluggish beat, voice tender, quiet.

“What.” That was harsh. Too harsh. It came out too mean and that’s not how it was supposed to sound, but his throat is too raw to be gentle.

Miles takes another step closer and Michael slams his eyes shut, fingers convulsing in the towel. Not now. He can’t handle this. Everything stings and aches and twists his heart up into mush. He wants to block all of it out. His heart can’t handle all of the answers his brain is trying to force out of him.

The touch of Miles’s hands over his, covering where Michael’s hands are bunched up in the towel around his ears, doesn’t make Michael cry so much as whimper. It’s soft, catches in his throat, and he exhales heavily through his nose to try and mask it.

“You’re shaking,” Miles tells him.

Michael’s aware of this already. “Think ‘m’cold,” he lies.

The air conditioning in the apartment doesn’t work. It’s not a convincing enough lie. It sounds pathetic even to him. Miles has to know something’s up.

“You’re shaking so much, Michael.” 

Michael can feel his heart beating heavily in his throat. Miles inches closer, so close, his thumbs brushing over Michael’s knuckles as he talks. 

“I’m going to move the towel, okay?”

Michael shakes his head, grip tightening on the towel, the skin on his knuckles turning white.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay, sweetheart. Are you?” Miles asks him, so quiet. He’s speaking _so_ quietly.

“‘M’fine,” he manages to get out, trying to keep his voice from wavering. “I-I just— it— just _don’t_.”

Miles’s hands slip from over Michael’s, but they don’t drop to his sides. Instead Michael can feel Miles rolling the bottom of the towel up in front of his face, just enough that Michael’s mouth is exposed. Miles fits his palms over Michael’s jaw, thumbs keeping the towel pinned to the tops of his cheeks so it doesn’t fall back over his mouth.

“You sure? You’re not crying, right?” he asks when he’s finished with the towel. “I didn’t say anything… I didn’t do anything wrong again, yeah?”

Miles’s hands are so warm, so capable, an anchor. He opens his eyes but still can’t see much except for Miles’s chest. It rises, Miles breathing in, and when Miles exhales Michael follows suit. A long, deep, steadying exhale. He’s okay. He’s not crying. He’s not shaking. He settles, body loosening, brain focusing on Miles’s breathing instead. Pull in, push out. Inhale, exhale.

It takes him a long moment.

The muscles in his arms ache when he releases the tight grip he had on the towel, both hands dropping to catch under Miles’s elbows. He just holds them there, lets the solidness of Miles’s body calm him. He’s fine, no panic, no crisis knocking at his door. Not yet, at least. Not when Miles is touching him, talking to him, genuinely caring for him.

“I wasn’t crying,” he says, honest but not willing to extrapolate on what he was thinking about, not wanting to come off as insecure.

The confusion is obvious in Miles’s tone when he asks, “But you were trembling?”

The bottom half of Michael’s face is so much more cold than the rest, his eyes burning and cheeks splotchy and red. He licks at his lips, mouth not so dry now as his mind slows in its racing, lets his body catch up. 

“I really was cold.” It’s not the truth, but better than the alternative.

Miles is quiet for a moment, still holding onto Michael’s face, and then he sighs.

“You’re not going to tell me what’s really up, are you?”

Michael shakes his head.

“You’re okay now, right? Was that just some moment you were having? I said I’m not going to make you talk unless you want to, man, so I’ll respect your boundaries and all. But… but you’re fine now?”

“Yeah.”

Miles hums, thoughtful. “Okay, then.”

Miles uses the grip he has on Michael’s jaw to tilt his head up slowly enough that Michael could stop him if he wanted and Michael doesn’t have to close his eyes, towel still hiding most of his face, but it’s a habit he just can’t break when Miles leans down to kiss him.

It’s not heated, there’s nothing sexual about this one, just an idle, gentle reassurance. Miles is only letting Michael know he’s there, that he can talk to him but doesn’t have to. No expectations, no more questions. Just Miles kissing him sweetly, Michael’s whole body thrumming with warmth and something he doesn’t want to name, not there yet, not ready for something like that.

The towel is slipping off the longer they kiss, the deeper it gets, until Michael is clutching at Miles’s elbows with his mouth parted, making quiet murmurs against Miles’s lips, and it falls to the floor, Miles tilting Michael’s head back more to get at his mouth. The towel goes past unnoticed, Michael already having forgotten it, too caught up in Miles distracting him. He doesn’t need it anymore anyway, no longer trembling.

“Don’t wanna stand,” Michael mumbles against Miles’s cheek, taking a moment to breathe.

Miles pulls away first so Michael doesn’t have to, letting go of Michael. He raises his brows and moves backwards, watching Michael until the backs of his knees hit the bed and then he turns away so he can move up the bed, his back halfway supported by the headboard, slouched a bit, his legs propped up slightly. He pauses for a moment after settling and then glances to Michael, patting at the spot next to him on the bed.

“Come on, you’ve got a comfy little bed here and a lap that’s worth sitting on.” Miles lets that sit in the air for a moment. “I’m talking about mine, just so you know.”

Michael comes over to him easily, just like earlier, and he only pauses for a moment to consider his options. It’s still early, Jack won’t be waking up for at least another half hour, so it’s not like it’s a bad idea to go back to making out with Miles and ignoring everything else. He should probably figure out how he’s going to get Miles home without Jack seeing, though.

But then Miles is extending his hand out to him and Michael decides that he doesn’t give a crap about thinking about what happens after all of this. Michael’s heart thuds wildly, placing his hand in Miles’s and kneeing his way onto the bed until Miles is grabbing at his hips and guiding him over his legs so Michael ends up fully straddling him.

They’re both still very naked and Miles is carrying some pretty serious morning wood along his navel, but Miles doesn’t seem to care about it at all, his hands skimming along Michael’s skin, grazing all the hickeys and love bites pointedly from one to the other, almost like how Michael was doing in the shower.

“Do they hurt?”

Miles doesn’t have to clarify what he means.

“The, fuckin’, um, the one here—” Michael taps two fingers along last night’s bite mark at the juncture between his neck and shoulder, his head canted to the side so Miles can see where he means “—is a little tender, but it doesn’t hurt exactly.”

Miles hems at that and then stretches up on an elbow to reach up and press his thumb down on the love bite, intrigued by the lurid color of it. It’s that same prodding curiosity that Michael found himself with when he was in the shower fingering the bruises on his thighs, but that doesn’t keep his body from hot-wiring. The sting from the bite spreads throughout his shoulder, rushes to the the soles of his feet, and the soreness of it makes him ache so painfully his system seems to shut down for what feels like years as he tries to acclimate to the pressure Miles has put on the mark he left on him.

Michael squeezes his eyes shut, inhaling harshly enough that he almost chokes, something catching in his throat. He grabs blindly at Miles’s forearm and tugs his hand away, opening his eyes and trying desperately not to whine.

“ _Don’t_ , fuck,” he tells Miles, not sounding particularly pained, but there’s an unmissable rawness to his tone that stresses the way his voice trembles.

He’s looking down at him as Miles looks up, still up on his elbow with his arm caught in Michael’s hand. The difference between them feels monumental then, like Michael is too high in the air for Miles to reach, but somehow they’re still touching.

“Sorry, man,” Miles apologizes solemnly for his curiosity, arm slipping through Michael’s grasp until Michael’s basically holding Miles’s hand. Miles laces their fingers together and Michael bites the inside of his cheek. “That was an asshole thing to do.”

“Yeah,” Michael agrees, though it’s not like the sensation was necessarily bad, just a little bit too much so soon after having been bit. And maybe if he’s being honest with himself he’ll admit that the shock of pain was too dangerous to explore, a sensation that made his stomach flip and something in him stir in interest.

“Probably shouldn’t have done it,” Miles goes on, pulling their intertwined hands down to his mouth so he can kiss the sensitive palm of Michael’s hand.

Michael’s watching as Miles does it and he’s not proud of the soft noise he makes in the back of his throat when Miles touches him like that, so sweet with him that Michael doesn’t know what to do with himself, how to put himself back together afterwards. He feels close to burning alive, body lit up and glowing, a skip to his heartbeat that he knows is only because of the saccharine way that Miles is touching him.

“Wouldn’t want to hurt you,” Miles is mumbling against Michael’s wrist now, tugging Michael down a little more on top of him to do it, and Michael’s other hand drops down on instinct to splay over Miles’s collarbone and keep himself from face-planting into him. 

He curls his fingers up into his palm, scratching lightly at Miles’s chest as he does it. That little pinprick of pressure along his palm helps ground him, keeps him from swaying over or making any loud noises. 

Miles is kissing up Michael’s wrist and to the inner bend of his elbow now, probably more than willing to do nothing but kiss along Michael’s skin until the next morning. Miles likes kissing, Michael’s realized. It seems like he wouldn’t mind it even if all they did was kiss; he’s good just so long as he has his mouth somewhere on Michael’ body. It’s nice, but at the same time Michael can only handle so much contact along such an erogenous zone before it gets overwhelming.

“Sometimes I like being hurt a little.”

Michael’s heart stops. He didn’t mean to say that. He didn’t even think… he doesn’t… _Christ_ , his heart is hammering anew now and his whole body is suddenly so tense it hurts, the knuckles on the fist he has on Miles’s chest going white with the harsh way he clenches it shut tight the second the words leave his mouth, palm stinging as his nails bite into his skin roughly.

“I... honestly don’t know what to say to that,” Miles admits after a long, awkward moment, pulling his mouth away from Michael’s arm to look up at Michael while resting back on his elbow.

His face has gone carefully blank and Michael can’t think of anything to say to fix what just happened.

“Fuck, I don’t… I don’t know why I said that,” Michael blurts out self-consciously, taking his hand off of Miles’s chest and leaning up, but Miles doesn’t let go of where their fingers are looped together even when he expects him to. “I haven’t been awake that long.”

“No, it’s fine,” Miles assures him, waving away Michael’s dismissive words. “I just really don’t know how to reply to that. Like… what does that mean?”

Michael’s absolutely flummoxed with himself, stuttering heart and sweating palms a good tell for just how embarrassed he is with himself all so quickly. 

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I just said it. It’s stupid.”

“No, seriously, man, go on. I’m not going to make fun of you or something. Nothing’s off limits here if you want to talk about it. Tell me what you mean.”

He doesn’t know how to explain what he means because he barely even knows what he meant himself. He tries, though. Tries to explain what he means in a way that doesn’t freak Miles (or himself) out.

“I-I just mean that, like, when you, y’know… um, bit me or whatever? That was good. I liked it. And when you made these—” Michael twists his hand in Miles’s grasp until he’s the one who has a hold on Miles’s hand, thumb brushing along Miles’s wrist, fingers curling around Miles’s last two fingers and pressing them down, leaving Miles’s index and middle fingers out so Michael can drag them over the imprints along his thigh, right where Miles’s nails dug in too harshly. “—that was good too. It’s… I just… I liked it. Not in a really weird way, just… I don’t know. The pressure was good, I think. I’m not… I’m not really sure. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t… I didn’t hate it or nothin’.”

Miles blinks up at him, brow unfurrowing as he singsongs a thoughtful, “ _Ah_ ,” that makes it sound like he knows more about what Michael’s saying than Michael himself does. 

He pulls his hand out from Michael’s and drops it back over Michael’s thigh and squeezes lightly, no real pressure but the implication of it; just that hint of what he could do again so easily if Michael asked him to.

“You mean you want more of that, huh? Just not where it’s already sore.”

Michael sighs in relief, grateful that Miles gets it and doesn’t think he’s weird, just like Miles didn’t think he was weird when he started crying. 

“Yeah, um… yes.”

Miles grins a little crookedly at that, something sordid in the curve of his mouth and the way his eyes seem to catch in the light, and Michael’s stomach swarms with butterflies all over again.

“Right now?” asks Miles, his voice pure accelerant and so easily turning dirty.

“We can’t,” he hears himself telling Miles, but his mind is screaming for Miles to do it, to hurt him just a little, just enough that he’ll really feel it and remember all of this for days after. He doesn’t want to forget any of what Miles tells him, what he does to him. 

The fingers on his thighs dig in just a little and Michael’s vision dims, eyes half closing as he rolls his hips up on instinct, something constrained in the movement even when subconscious, helpless to the way his body trills at Miles’s touch but not entirely powerless.

“Can’t why?” Miles presses, genuinely inquisitive. “Don’t you want it?”

Michael thinks Miles doesn’t quite understand the severity of just how much he wants it, couldn’t even fathom it. His hands cover both of Miles’s on his thighs, gripping onto Miles in a way that makes it impossible for him to take his hands off anyway. His body is at odds with his words, with what he knows he shouldn’t do.

“Jack’s here,” he wheedles with no real insistence, words ringing hollow. He can’t touch on the second half of Miles’s questioning. He’ll be too honest.

“I saw you lock the door. Besides, kept you quiet last night, didn’t I?” Miles asks rhetorically, always so confident. “But Jack? I don’t see him in here at all unless he’s just, like, invisible now. And, man, I gotta say that he must be _super_ into watching his roommate make out with the fresh faces around the company if he really is just hanging out in here all invisible and shit. We’re hanging full dong and Jack’s just in here watching us? _Dirty_. Jack, cough twice if you think I need to really hone in on the neck and ear stuff more.”

Michael makes a face and Miles stares back with a comically shy shrug. 

“What? A guy’s always willing to take some tips and suggestions. Could be helpful as hell.”

Despite his words, however, Miles goes to move his hands off of Michael’s thighs, clearly willing to stop things short if Michael doesn’t want them to keep going. But Michael’s fingers squeeze tight around Miles’s hands, not letting them move by even an inch. Miles looks towards where Michael’s hands are over his and then back at Michael. 

“Michael?”

He shakes his head. “Jack’s still asleep.”

Miles blinks. “Okay… is that supposed to be your way of saying we definitely can’t do anything sexy or are you making moves on me right now? Because that could _seriously_ be taken either way and you’re really giving me mixed signals here. Do I take my hands off or not?”

Michael’s silent for a beat, his insides all twisted up and coiled tight, feeling some mixture between giddiness and guilt. He knows he’s not going to let Miles get dressed and leave even when he’s hyper-aware of Jack two doors down the hall. And he is well aware of the fact that Miles can’t really stay here forever, that they can’t be holed up in this tiny apartment room for the next couple of days like Michael wishes they could. His heart is entropic, at odds with himself, and though he knows damn well that he should get up and help Miles find his clothes, instead he leans forward until his forehead touches Miles’s and just holds himself there.

His eyes are closed for a moment of clarity, hands squeezing Miles’s, as he says the only thing he can think to say, which is an honest, “I don’t want you to go.”

Michael’s eyes blink open again just as Miles’s face fragments into something softer, comparable to gossamer, one breeze goes by and the expression on Miles’s face might just shudder apart like it was never there to start with. It’s like he’s been jump-started into movement again, his whole body melting under Michael, each slow reaction from him seeming to happen one right after the other but not at the same time; as if he’s a mechanical being with valves and gears that have to each work to start before his whole body can react in time with his heart.

His mouth drops first, no longer coy but stunned, breathless, parting slightly. Then it’s his eyes that turn gentle, drooping, looking at Michael’s lips like he’s anticipating something more from him, searching for another admittance of attachment. His brows furrow, not like he’s confused but hurt, like he’s been wounded. His hands move as an afterthought, easily wresting Michael’s grip on them off so they can find their way to ghost over Michael’s neck, right under his jaw.

“I don’t have to,” Miles tells him, tone careful, his thumbs brushing over Michael’s jawline.

“I think you know you do, actually.”

“But not yet. It’s still kind of early.”

Michael doesn’t know how to tell Miles that he thinks this will all change the second Miles leaves the apartment. It’s not Miles that he’s worried about, it’s himself. He knows he won’t be able to face Miles afterwards. Knows, maybe, that the second Miles is gone he’s going to second-guess everything that happened and somehow convince himself that this wasn’t anything. That it was a mistake. That he must’ve been drunk the whole time even though deep down he knows he was only tipsy after the stripclub, but not after getting home.

And the awful part is that he’s sure Miles isn’t going to think anything like that. Miles is going to call him. He’s going to ask Michael if he wants to hang out and play videogames. Miles is going to really try to get Michael to meet up with him and maybe he’ll even try to talk about what happened last night and the morning after. He’s going to want answers and Michael knows himself, knows that he’s not going to have any to give Miles, and in the end he’s going to get nasty and yell and curse and tell Miles to piss off and not to touch him.

It’s inevitable. Michael can’t expect himself to keep this up, to not blow this out of proportion or try and bury it as deep down as humanly possible. To repress every aspect of this the second Miles leaves him alone long enough to obsess over his feelings and what all of this means for him.

But for now Miles is touching him and all Michael can do is touch back, to press his palms to Miles’s chest and keep them there for as long as he has Miles in his bed. To let Miles take away his worries for just a little while longer. Prolong this moment and let it spiral to completion before Michael has to ruin it.

He should get the most out of this while he still has the chance. There’s so much he wants from Miles, then. So much. He’s famished. So full of longing, craving anything he can get. He doesn’t know what to do with all the desires Miles forces from him, the way he could beg and beg and still not have enough. Miles has everything to give him and Michael wants that and then some, and then some, and then some more. He could gorge himself off the hand-outs of affection Miles gives him only to still have room for dessert.

So Michael can’t keep Miles there forever. That’s just the way it is, because as timeless as Miles’s attention seems, he’ll have to leave soon. Michael can’t possess Miles entirely, can’t claim him because he is no one’s but his own, but Michael will be damned if he doesn’t want to try. He’ll be damned if he doesn’t want to turn Miles into something collared. Something savored. Something his.

So Michael’s mouth moves without much forethought or prompting, ready to get all he can before it’s too late.

“I never touched you last night.”

“Sorry, what?” Miles asks as he stills with a puzzled look, head cocked to the side, not on the same page and maybe not even on the same book. 

“I never touched you,” he parrots himself. “I’m just saying, like, I never really got to touch you last night. During, um, everything, I guess. The sex, you know? I never got my hands on you,” he explains in a rush, feeling the greed drooling from inside him, egging him on. “Everything was about me and none of it was for you. You came on my thighs and stuff, but I didn’t really… I wasn’t a part of that. I mean, like, I guess I was kind of the cause or whatever, but I didn’t _do_ that. Like, physically.”

Miles blinks quickly, eyes wide, obviously very thrown by this sudden line of conversation.

“Whoa, okay, slow your roll there, baby. I’m gonna need you to come down from fifth gear to second, let me level with you for a sec. What’re you even talking about right now?”

Michael has to force himself to speak slower while declaring that, “I’m just saying — or trying to say — like, that I didn’t do much. Don’t you feel, I don’t know, used or something?” 

He’s desperate to get Miles to understand what he’s trying to say, what he wants now before Miles has to go.

“Uh,” Miles hedges cautiously, eyeing Michael up, “not really? You said you were new to all of this last night, so it’s not like I wanted to freak you out or anything by making you try something you didn’t even know how to do. And I didn’t even know what exactly you’d be down for in the first place. And, sure, I’m all about communication and talking things through but I just figured you wouldn’t be interested in any of that anyway. Not for your first time, at least.” 

“Well it’s not like I’m an idiot, Miles, I could’ve figured shit out along the way. I was an electrician before this so I know how to pick things up as I go. I’m good at that.”

“I wasn’t trying to say you couldn’t do what you set your mind out for, man,” Miles assures him, still reeling from confusion at where any of this came from but adamant on making sure Michael knows he wasn’t trying to patronize him. “It just seemed like the easiest way to go about all of your nervousness from last night was to do the heavy lifting for you. Figured I’d just play it safe and focus on getting you to come.” Miles smiles lopsidedly then, a shyness at the corner of his mouth. “Besides, I like it better when you’re the one losing it because of me and I know I’m giving you what you want. If I can get you to shake in my hands or make those sounds you try to keep down then it’s a huge turn-on. So, uh, I like the control and, uh, having that power over you is really the hottest thing for me, y’know? It gets me off. I’m okay with the way things went, honest. Cross my heart and everything.”

And that’s really not something Michael needs to focus on right now when he’s trying to switch gears on this whole situation, but his mind gets stuck on Miles’s words anyway. Miles definitely had control last night — _still_ has control, even. One word from him and Michael will try to do the impossible. He follows the orders Miles gives out and that is… that is _way_ too dangerous. It’s not something Michael’s used to at all, almost always the one giving out the orders, never taking them.

“Well I’m fuckin’ not.”

Miles blows out a breath at how vehemently Michael says that. “What’re you saying?”

“I want to, like, actually touch your dick. I’ve never done it before.”

Miles half-laughs, obviously trying not to, and asks partially to himself like rephrasing Michael’s words will make him understand them, “You’ve never touched my dick before?”

“No. Or, well, _yeah_ ,” he corrects himself quickly, “but I mean I’ve never given another guy a handjob. Or I guess I’ve never touched another guy’s dick, either.”

Miles appears very apprehensive all of a sudden. His hands end up back at Michael’s thighs though, Michael still straddling his lap, and Michael supposes Miles must not be too suspicious if he’s still getting handsy.

“So…” Miles ventures, spacing his words out very slowly like he’s piecing together a puzzle, fingers drumming on Michael’s thighs, “what you’re telling me is that you want… to touch mine?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Why’s this like some kind of advanced concept to you that you just can’t seem to wrap your dumb head around? I wanna jerk you off, okay?”

Miles, unphased by Michael’s less than sweet words, asks, “Like, right now?”

“No,” Michael says with a roll of his eyes, patronizing now. “I just figured I’d tell you and then never get around to doing it. Fucking of _course_ I mean right now! When else? Next goddamn year?”

“You’re a real sweet talker, Michael.”

“And yet I still don’t have your dick in my hand.”

“I mean… it’s right there.” 

Miles stares pointedly down at his lap and Michael glances down too before scoffing and looking back up in time with Miles, both eyeing each other up.

“Wow. Because I’m just going to touch your dick.”

Miles is smiling now, amused. 

“Michael,” he hazards steadily, pacing the syllables out for dramatic flare, eyes bookended by laugh lines, “you do know what a handjob is, don’t you? You can’t really give someone one without touching their dick.”

“But I don’t know _how_ to give a handjob. It’s, like, _way_ different on someone else. The angle’s off. It’s all weird.”

“There’s really no wrong way to give a handjob.” Miles pauses, thinks on that for a moment. “No, wait, yeah. Yeah, there definitely is. Don’t try to give my dick rug burn and we’re good. Like, don’t twist in two different directions like an animal. Just do what you’d do for yourself. It’s easy.”

That does absolutely nothing to assuage Michael’s doubts. But, again, there’s that tug in his gut, that greed and hunger that’s curling up along his insides and tangling together. Though he doesn’t know how he’s going to pull it off there’s nothing more that he wants than this: than to have Miles asking him not to stop while trying not to come apart at Michael’s touch, to beg Michael to keep going, to stay right there with him.

So he licks his lips and edges backwards over Miles’s lap until his ass is pressed against Miles’s propped up thighs and Miles’s dick is no longer directly under him. He puts one hand out to steady himself in preparation for what he’s about to do and grips at Miles’s shoulder, thumbing there at his collarbone absently. 

“Okay,” he mutters unnecessarily, talking only to himself. “Okay. _Right_. Handjob time. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”

Miles snickers at that and when Michael takes a look up from Miles’s lap to glare at him Miles covers his mouth, shaking his head as if to say, _‘Woops, my bad. Do your thing. No judgement.’_

Michael sucks his teeth, but doesn’t say anything else. Miles’s dick is thick, an angry red at the tip that almost looks like it’s painful, like he’s been hard for hours, and Michael doesn’t quite know what to do with it. Miles’s dick isn’t dry, but it’s not like it’s sopping wet either. Should he get his hand slick first? Michael never has to worry about that for himself because he doesn’t mind the dryness and can normally get himself wet with precome in a few seconds. But Miles is different in a lot of ways and maybe he wouldn’t be into that. Should he ask?

Michael blinks and trails his eyes back up and is met with Miles who is still trying desperately not to laugh at Michael’s muttered words of self-encouragement. Yeah. Fuck asking Miles anything. 

He directs his attention back down to Miles’s dick and figures it’s better to be safe than sorry. He brings his hand to his mouth so he can lick from the bottom of his palm to the tip of his middle finger, using as much saliva as possible, mouth watering with it. He drops his hand and holds it just above Miles’s cock for only a second, nerves making him freeze up, and then he shakes his head at himself and wraps his fingers around the base of Miles’s cock with the exact amount of confidence you’d expect from someone with absolutely no clue what they’re doing.

He doesn’t even get to the actual jerking part of jerking Miles off before Miles lets out the loudest, filthiest groan Michael’s ever heard in his _life_. And it was a groan, too, not a moan, because that shit did _not_ sound like it felt good but like it was forced from the back of Miles’s throat, incredibly raw sounding like the throaty, stunned noise you’d let out while being whipped. Michael can’t be faulted for the way he jolts at the noise and looks up swiftly to gauge Miles’s face to see if he’s done something ostensibly wrong.

“Sorry,” Miles apologizes at Michael’s jump of surprise, voice wound tight already and gone all sandpapery as his eyebrows draw together as if in pain. He only meets Michael’s eyes for a split second before he shuts them and tilts his head back against the headboard, keeping his eyes open proving to be too difficult of a task when there’s a hand on his dick. “You’re doin’ fine, just morning wood. I’ve been aching for _ages_. Since you woke me up comin’ in here. I-I normally do this— _fuck_ — do this myself in the morning. I’m a wake and crank kind of guy.”

“Oh,” is all Michael can find within himself to reply back with. 

He hasn’t even moved his hand yet, but Miles is already so loud.

There’s something powerful in the way Miles is lolling his head around already, throat bared and mouth parted, just because Michael’s got a hand on his dick. Something mesmerizing about that noise Michael all but ripped from Miles’s throat, a hedonistic thrill in the way Michael tightens his hand a bit more around Miles’s cock experimentally and is rewarded with another choked out sound spilling from Miles’s parted lips. Michael feels like he’s on cloud nine, the amount of control he has over Miles with just one little hand enough to make his body feel electric, makes him restless. 

He fully understands how just this drunk-on-power feeling could get Miles off, he really does.

“Little tighter, if you could,” Miles instructs him while biting at his lip.

Michael listens dutifully, eagerly taking mental notes of every reaction from Miles like he’s performing a science experiment. He tightens his grip as he slides his hand up, the drag of his palm slick but not as slick as it would’ve been with lotion. Curious as ever, he’s torn between watching what he’s doing to make sure he doesn’t mess up somehow or staring voyeuristically at Miles’s face for cues on what’s working for Miles and what’s not, but when Miles full-on whimpers as Michael finally starts moving his hand there’s no question that he has to look up to catch the wave of ecstasy that crashes over Miles’s face.

Miles’s brows pull together and he bites at his lip harder than before, jaw visibly clenching for a moment, and both of Miles’s hands grab at Michael’s hips and dig in like they’re a lifeline. Miles’s cheeks are ruddy, ears such a lurid red that Michael thinks they’d burn to touch, and Michael’s thrilled to find out that that same blush is mimicked over Miles’s chest where it must’ve been spreading upwards from. 

Michael didn’t really get to look at Miles much last night, but he sees all of him now. Sees Miles breathing shallowly enough that it’s making his chest stutter and seize, sees the way the muscles in his arms strain as he holds onto Michael hips, and can even see how responsive his dick is just from some light touching as the head of it starts pearling with precome, wettening in Michael’s hand.

It’s fucking amazing.

Michael drags his hand almost all the way up Miles’s dick and then back down again, jacking him off for real finally. He doesn’t touch the head, though. He wants to save that. Miles doesn’t even seem to notice that he was strategically avoiding the crown of his dick, just keeps making these hushed little whimpers in the back of his throat that almost sound like groans the longer Miles draws them out, voice getting deeper.

And that, both the noises and the way Miles seems like he’s trying to hold them back, is incredibly intoxicating. Michael never realized he could be the reason for someone to be making such helpless, feeble noises of sheer pleasure. He’s the one doing this to Miles. His heart turns inside out, his jaw clenching taut, and he loves it.

But he has to pull his hand off, his wrist cramping at the awkward angle he’s forced with using due to his positioning in Miles’s lap. It’s not that he’s too uncoordinated exactly, but the movement isn’t practiced and there’s no real finesse to it, his grip probably too loose despite how into it Miles seemingly is.

When he lets go, however, Miles drags in a harsh breath, a noisy hiss, and Michael’s not exactly shocked to watch as Miles rolls his hips upward, a reaction spurred on by suddenly being deprived of Michael’s grip on him, trying blindly to find something to fuck up into.

“I think I’d be better at this if I was behind you,” he tells Miles while he’s in the middle of rolling his hand around, trying to stretch the cramp out of his wrist.

Michael’s not really expecting much of an answer from Miles, assumes he might be in a bit of a fog, but Miles opens his eyes and Michael doesn’t know if he should admire or be offended by how clear Miles’s eyes seem.

“What,” Miles starts, voice thick and raspy, “like you want to Ghost me? Be the Patrick Swayze to my Demi Moore?”

“I mean, I guess? This position is kinda fucking with my wrist, I think. Like, it aches a bit. Or maybe I’m doing it wrong? I’m just used to jerking myself off and it’s way different like this. I’m, like, I’m doing it the same way I’d do on myself but it’s weird when I’m on the opposite side like this.”

Miles glances down at his dick and purses his lips before moving one of his hands off of Michael’s hip so he can wrap his hand around himself. Michael can’t help but watch raptly as Miles slowly strokes along the length of his dick, all the way up to the tip, and then spreads the precome there down to the base of it. So Miles must prefer it when his dick’s wet while tugging one out. Michael files that bit of information away for future alone time with just himself and his half-empty lotion and box of tissues.

“Gimmie your hand,” Miles orders, letting go of his dick to instead open his hand for Michael to place his in.

Michael stops stretching his wrist, cramp lessened, and of course he holds his hand out to Miles without hesitation. Miles brushes his thumb over Michael’s palm fleetingly before slipping his hand over the back of Michael’s fingers. He brings Michael’s palm to the underside of his cock instead of the top like Michael had been doing. Next, he manipulates Michael’s fingers around the width of his dick, leaving Michael’s thumb out of the equation entirely. It’s kind of like how Michael was trying to do it except it’s upside down now.

“Like that,” Miles advises, all throat, trying to keep his voice in check but failing when Michael grips just a little tighter. “You hurt your wrist because you were trying to do it like you would on yourself, but you have to take into account the fact that you’re also above me as well as in front of me. You’ve gotta reach down. It’s the same grip, only you’re not trying to angle your hand up.”

Michael stares down at where Miles still has his hand on the back of his, which is still on Miles’s dick he’d like to make note of. He blinks once, twice, and then has to meet Miles’s eyes as the realization sets in. Miles talks like it’s from first-hand experience.

“You’ve jerked someone off like this before?”

Miles grins sleazily. “Remember that old college buddy of mine from the dorms?”

“The thigh guy?” Michael asks and the second the words leave his mouth he gets it. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Can’t say I didn’t get most of my experience with handjobs from him. And you’re not the only one who likes being on top.” Miles lets that sit in the air for a moment. “But, hey, give it a whirl, tiger. It’s easy to do when your hand’s reaching like that, no harsh angle or nothing. I wouldn’t bother trying to wrap your thumb around, though, ‘cause in my experience that leads to cramps too. But, hey, if you want to be an overachiever I won’t try to stop you.”

Michael regards Miles’s cock thoughtfully again, flexes his fingers, and starts to move his hand down with as much coordination and skill as he can muster. It’s leagues easier to try and get Miles off this way and Miles goes back to making hushed little noises in his throat the second Michael starts up again. Miles releases the back of Michael’s hand to instead hold onto Michael’s wrist and while Michael would assume that Miles only does that for something to grab at, he’s shocked to realize that Miles is sweeping his thumb back and forth over Michael’s inner wrist like he’s trying to soothe that twinge of discomfort Michael told him about.

Michael’s heart flips over, endeared beyond words, breath locking up in his chest. He licks at his lips. He’s going to make Miles feel so good.

He tightens his hold on Miles’s cock, Miles a bit too thick for Michael to wrap his fingers fully around the width of him, and decides to stop fucking around like some asshole who’s never touched a dick before in their life (which he kind of is, but he’s sure not going to act like it when Miles is so deserving of the best he can offer). He quickens the pace on another upstroke and this time when he slips his hand all the way up he thumbs under the head of Miles’s cock and is met immediately by Miles’s deep, drawn-out moan and the way Miles’s whole body shakes and rolls underneath him.

“Shit, Michael, just like that,” Miles encourages, head turning to pant into the side of the hand Michael still has on Miles’s shoulder for stability. “Fuck, man.”

Michael’s hand is ceaseless after that, thumbing at the frenulum under the crown of Miles’s cock, palming the head, starting to twist his hand on every upstroke because it seems like Miles likes that move a whole lot if the bite to the skin at the back of Michael’s hand is anything to go by. Miles is still holding onto Michael’s wrist the whole time Michael’s getting him off, too, though his thumb pauses occasionally whenever Michael pulls another high noise from him, another keening sound that leaves Michael’s cheeks flaring hot and his stomach lurching. He could just worship Miles all day, keep pulling noises from him that make Michael’s whole body burn and throb in response.

Michael goes weak and can’t help the way he leans into Miles then, drawn towards the desperate and feverish whines Miles can’t quite choke back like they’re siren calls. His face is so close to Miles’s now that he can feel the hitch in Miles’s breath along his chin. And though it was completely unintentional and subconscious at first, he leans that much closer in, barely an inch between them, nose bumping against Miles’s cheekbone.

Miles has his eyes closed, not paying attention to anything other than the feeling of Michael jacking him off, so when Michael pushes forward and places a kiss to Miles’s cheek it’s no surprise that Miles makes an aborted sound in his throat like he wanted to ask what Michael was doing but just couldn’t manage to make the words. Miles does turn his head into it, though, wordlessly asking for more, his mouth wet from biting at it.

He gives Miles a proper kiss then but doesn’t open his mouth wide enough for tongue, keeping things relatively chaste, just a tease. Miles juts his jaw out when Michael goes to pull away, however, and then they’re kissing again. Michael lets it keep going but doesn’t allow Miles to do anything more than lick at his upper lip to try and get him to kiss deeper. Miles is eating up what Michael gives him greedily, but Michael’s kisses slow down, tongue at Miles’s lips and hinting at entering but he holds off, pulls back. He can feel Miles trying to get to him, desperate and shameless, angling his head up for it. Michael keeps him there in that limbo for what seems like hours until Miles sags back and huffs, and only then does he surge back down and open his mouth up for Miles.

And the kissing is way too wet and entirely too messy, hot puffs of breath between them, sometimes landing off-center, Miles not capable enough to try and come off as suave and cool when Michael’s still jerking him off as fast as he can manage while multitasking. At one point Miles ends up getting sidetracked and instead of going in for another kiss — Michael just hovering there and letting Miles do the work — Miles ends up biting at Michael’s chin which naturally leads to him kissing along Michael’s jaw until he’s teething at Michael’s earlobe and making Michael shudder.

“Wanna fuck you,” Miles manages to whisper into Michael’s ear, voice so far gone now that’s it’s nothing more than a warm rumble, gravellier than all hell.

“Can’t,” is all Michael gets out before Miles is back to kissing at the soft spot just under his ear maddeningly.

Michael’s sure Miles is trying to suck another bruise into that spot there and he doesn’t know why Miles has such a habit of marking him up, but he’s sure at this point that Miles is doing it just to keep from being loud. Or maybe he just likes leaving hickeys. What matters most, however, is that Michael is honestly astonished with himself for somehow maintaining his dignity and not doing something stupid like screaming or coming all over himself when Miles goes from sucking innocently enough on his neck to scraping his teeth along his skin and then digging his teeth in. 

Miles not only likes hickeys, but he’s definitely into biting as well and Michael’s been made well aware of that fact, but Michael finds that unlike the hickeys he at least gets off from the burst of pain and pleasure that mixes each time Miles sets his teeth into his skin. 

“You’re like a fuckin’ vampire,” Michael can’t help but point out as he breathes harshly, making wounded little, _‘ah, ah, ah,’_ noises when Miles bites just that little bit harder before letting go and licking at the set of teeth marks he leaves behind on Michael’s neck.

“I watched Vampire In Brooklyn when I was a wee teen,” Miles mumbles into the column of Michael’s throat, just loud enough for Michael to hear him, slurring slightly against Michael’s skin, “and found out just how into the whole biting thing I was when I was with my friends. That shit was _super_ uncomfortable.”

Michael tries not to laugh but ultimately fails, turning to giggle into Miles’s cheek and then his mouth as Miles kisses him, both of them smiling.

“Can’t believe you popped a boner at an Eddie Murphy movie, you fuckin’ freak of nature,” Michael says against Miles’s mouth, pressing back in for another kiss before Miles can form a retort.

Miles pulls away from the kiss early just to counter defensively, “Hey, man, Murphy looked _good_ in that movie. I’d let ‘95 era Murphy have me. I’d let him… I’d let that man use me.”

Michael cringes at the phrasing, but doesn’t let that stop him from kissing Miles again, hand stilling on Miles’s cock so he can really get at Miles’s mouth, trying to kiss deeper, canting his head to the side for better access. The hand on Michael’s wrist tightens, Miles’s thumb pressing into Michael’s wrist now forcefully, and Michael titters just a little into Miles’s mouth as he pulls away and starts moving his hand again.

“Ya’ couldn’t even wait one second before trying to get me to jerk you off again?” he questions, just a little bit condescending.

He doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on, though, recalling just how many times he resorted to full-on begging Miles to touch him last night in the midst of sex, caught between knowing how shameless he was being and not caring even a little bit.

“Desperate,” Miles admits like it’s nothing to be embarrassed about and boy does his voice show just how honest he is, a slight growl to it that sounds strained.

“I can tell.” 

And then, all too suddenly, Miles pulls Michael’s hand off of his cock, wraps his arm around Michael’s back, and then he’s turning them over until Michael’s the one with his back on the bed and Miles is between his thighs. Michael’s left reeling as Miles moves his arm out from under Michael and places both forearms on either side of Michael’s head.

“Kinda tired of the foreplay,” Miles remarks breezily as if he didn’t just completely switch their positions in less than two seconds. Michael’s vision is still spinning. “Wanna see if you can do a little more than just hand stuff, sweetheart? Skip ahead to lesson numero dos?”

“Um,” Michael hazards slowly, looking from Miles’s very serious eyes to the very serious cock leaking precome onto his hip from above.

“Don’t have to do anything more than what you want,” Miles reminds him, mumbling now, leaning down so he can mouth at Michael’s neck again.

Michael’s breath is cloistered up in his chest, bated, and now that the attention is back on him he’s already getting lightheaded and woozy.

“What… like, what’re you talking about? Like, specifically.”

“Your mouth.”

Michael licks his lips instinctively, can’t help it. He’s staring up at the ceiling for lack of anything else to look at, Miles tonguing at the hollow of his throat now.

“What about my mouth?” he prompts, but he knows exactly what Miles means. He’s not a moron.

A blowjob seems a lot more advanced than a handjob, though. Like it requires leagues more experience than Michael has. He doesn’t even think he could fit Miles in his mouth and he’s not sure how exactly he’s supposed to keep his teeth from catching on the head of Miles’s dick. Sure, he’s had it done on him before — by Miles even — but he wasn’t really paying attention to _how_ he was being sucked off. Also breathing seems like it’d be a real challenge, but he guesses, if anything, Miles wouldn’t be the type to try and force him to take more than he could handle.

Michael doesn’t think he’s ready for that, though. No matter how much trust he has in Miles to keep him safe and steadfastly looked after, how effortless it is for Miles to get Michael to move to his whim.

“Wanna see your mouth around me,” Miles murmurs and even though Michael knows he’s going to have to turn Miles down that doesn’t stop the flare of arousal at Miles’s words and the mental images that result from them. It’s not even dirty talk, really, just Miles explaining exactly what he wants, but even then it still sounds filthy when Miles speaks so coarsely in that gruff tone of voice. “Want you to take my cock as good as you can.”

His mouth’s dry as he shakes his head, declines regretfully with, “I don’t think I could take you. ‘M’not, like… ready for it or whatever. Can’t.”

Miles’s mouth pauses for a second in its kissing along Michael’s chest as he takes that in. One of Miles’s hands finds their way to Michael’s hair, fingers carding through his curls, and Miles lifts away from Michael’s chest to meet his eyes, already nodding.

“That’s okay, sweetheart. I can think of a million other ways we can keep this party goin’. Don’t have to if you don’t want it.”

“No,” Michael says immediately, voice louder than he meant for it to be. He gulps and tries again, forcing himself to keep it down. “No,” he repeats, going on ardently to say, “it’s not that I don’t _want_ it. Of course I want to. It’s just too much right now. I… I’m not prepared. I don’t know how to do it and it’s way different from just giving a handjob.”

Miles says simply, no pressure, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Michael copies, an affirmation.

“What do you want to do, then?” Miles poses, letting Michael lead. 

“I still want to touch you. I want— I mean, I was fine with how things were before you went all flippy on me like the fuckin’ Hulk and switched positions and stuff.”

“Power move,” Miles states like that explains everything.

“Um, okay?”

“What, it didn’t get you all hot and bothered? You not into it?”

“I mean, I guess I was.”

Miles nods like that was expected. “See? Power move.”

“Well that’s not much of the point, though.”

“We can still go back to doing what we were if you want. Can even roll us back over and get you on top again like how you like it.” 

Michael looks down between them. “We could just try and both get off.”

Miles follows Michael’s gaze, forehead bumping against his as he follows Michael’s lead and looks between them.

“Ah,” Miles responds. “Wanna go at it like animals, huh? Freaky.”

Miles grinds down with purpose at that, the wet length of his cock dragging all the way along Michael’s much neglected dick. Miles has Michael mewling straight away at the relieving sensation of them frotting together, his head tipping back with his throat stretched out and heat pooling in his groin before he chokes on his saliva and looks back down between them to see the way their dicks are glistening, the both of them stupidly hard.

“There you are,” Miles sweet-talks the second the stripped back noise breaks past Michael’s lips, sounding properly pleased with himself. “Been trying to get you to make a noise like that all morning. I was missing all the little cries from last night. Thought I might’ve been doing something wrong. Good thing I still get to take you apart some more, huh? Turn you into putty in my hands.”

“Shut up, Miles,” he admonishes. His brows pull together as he bites the inside of his cheek to keep from making more noises, his eyes foggy and cheeks hot. 

“Wanna try and make me, baby?” Miles coaxes with a smug curl of his lips, salacious as ever.

He meets Miles’s eyes sharply, not quite glaring but he’s getting there. Michael knows a challenge when he hears it and isn’t one to back down. He plants his feet on the bed and rolls his hips upwards, not breaking eye contact with Miles as he drags the whole hot length of his dick up into Miles’s. 

The smile on Miles’s face is there and then it’s not, Michael pulling it from him like it’s the easiest thing he’s ever done. Miles bites into his bottom lip, eyes shuddering shut, and he digs his hand deeper into Michael’s hair and pulls roughly, Michael’s chin tipping up, the tug stinging and making Michael’s toes curl.

“Like that, huh?” Miles guesses as he opens his eyes again, getting an eyeful of the way Michael’s back arches up into him like a cat’s. Miles’s voice is full of adoration, desire coloring every word that falls from his mouth, and Michael’s filled to the brim with yearning. “If you like being hurt just a little then the hair pulling’s gotta be something you’re into as well, aren’t ya’? This get you off?”

Michael’s incapable of lying when Miles speaks as brazenly as he is in the same raspy tone he used during the dirty talk from last night, so Michael nods, a tender, stunned little whimper leaving his mouth in lieu of a real response.

“Kinky. Hot, too. But that’s real kinky, Michael. Some freaky shit. They better lock you up for being this much of a little deviant.”

Michael tries to laugh but Miles grinds down into him again, his fingers tightening in Michael’s hair with purpose now, and Michael’s just glad that he doesn’t start crying as his body feels as though it’s flying off in all different directions, body manipulated and fully out of his control when Miles comes at him from two different extremes of pleasure: one good, one bad, both stimulating. His mouth drops open, but the noise that leaves his lips is almost entirely silent this time, breathy and faint, and is pulled from him almost like an afterthought to the way the rest of his body sings its praise at the sensations he’s going through.

Miles loves doing this to him, Michael can tell. It’s written all over Miles’s smug face, can be heard in his self-satisfied and delighted voice. If he wasn’t so turned on he’d have half a mind to tell Miles to reel back his ego, but at the same time the confidence Miles gives off isn’t all that bad and, if anything, kind of gets Michael even more turned on.

Michael’s just about to ask Miles where he gets off by rendering Michael speechless and panting like he’s insatiable when there’s a sudden, alarming, and entirely too loud knock on the door from behind them.

Michael’s eyes widen and Miles buries his face in Michael’s neck right as he rocks back into Michael, their cocks sliding together and against each other’s stomachs, not able to stop himself before the knock comes. Michael can’t tell if Miles either has his face in Michael’s neck because he’s trying to hide or is just trying to keep quiet, breathing harshly against his skin. Michael’s not that well off either, chest stuttering awkwardly and having to bite at the meat of his thumb to stop the moan that tries oozing out of him at the feel of Miles’s soft stomach brushing against the sensitive head of his cock.

It’s quiet for a beat as they both go deathly still, Miles shaking just slightly like trying to control himself is taking up every ounce of willpower he has, and then Michael can hear Jack’s voice calling out an unaware and totally innocuous, “Hey, Michael?”

Michael turns his face into Miles’s hair and closes his eyes for an ephemeral moment as he tries to collect himself. There’s no way Jack’s not going to be able to hear the roughness of his voice or the way his breathing’s just a little off, erratic and showing no signs of evening out when Miles is right there on top of him and breathing hotly against the sensitive, blurred rings of bite marks under his ear and along his shoulder.

Miles whispers very, very quietly against his shoulder, lips dragging across his skin, “He called your name.”

Michael wants to say, ‘ _No fucking shit. Really great help there, Captain Obvious,’_ but instead opts out of replying to Miles at all in favor of calling back to Jack a hopefully unsuspicious, “Yeah?”

“I’m going to go get some breakfast, y’all want anything?”

And in the absolute worst turn of events, Miles — the fucking _cocksucker_ — goes from keeping himself deathly still to rocking his hips into Michael playfully. It’s just enough that his cock brushes right up along the base of Michael’s, the grind sticky and hot, and Michael’s helpless to stop the groan that claws its way from his throat and pries itself out from between his lips.

He tries desperately to turn the groan into something less sexual by melting the noise into a frantic, “ _I don’t_ — um, don’t know.” His brain scrambles for something that makes sense. “What’re you, like, what’re you getting?”

He punches at Miles’s shoulder as hard but as quietly as he can, pissed even while his body throbs and his toes curl again. Miles makes a soft snorting noise against Michael’s shoulder, his own shoulders starting to shake as he laughs as silently as he can manage. If Michael weren’t the one having to do the talking he reckons he’d be laughing too, but since it’s him that has to keep the sex noises down to zero it only makes him want to throttle Miles.

“Local place about twenty-five minutes away. Breakfast burritos are pretty darn good around here and they’ve got tons of sides at the place I’m going to. I know some little tricks to get ‘em loaded up with cheese, too,” Jack tempts, unwitting to Miles trying to smother another bout of laughter against Michael’s skin as Jack acts like asking for a free side of cheese is a trick and not just an option that’s not worth writing down on the menu.

“Nah,” Michael manages to answer finally after a pregnant pause of incredulous silence — because Michael is completely thrown for a loop by just how unaware Jack is, especially considering Michael knows that he and Miles haven’t really been trying to stay _that_ quiet — when Miles gently taps at his hip to get him to respond, his shoulders still shaking. “I’m good, man.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll just get something for me and you can find something on your own,” Jack says nonchalantly, voice muffled through the wood of the door. 

Both Michael and Miles are as silent as the grave while they wait for Jack to not only walk away, wooden floorboards creaking as he leaves, but for the tell-tale sign of the front door opening and then closing before they say or do anything.

The wave of relief that surges through him is like having a bucket of ice cold water dumped over him. He was so tense the whole time Jack was standing in front of his door, his stomach knotted and home to nervous butterflies, that when he leaves it’s like he can really breathe again without being worried he’d somehow give himself up. Michael lets out all the air he’d stored up in his chest, a heavy enough exhale that leaves him feeling dizzy.

He can’t believe that’s really all Jack wanted to ask about. Just wanting to check in and see if he wanted any breakfast, not to ask what all the noise was about or why Michael’s not cleaning the house like he normally is every morning. Michael literally _groaned_ out words. Maybe Jack’s fooled himself into thinking that Michael’s got his door shut and locked because he’s watching porn. Michael doesn’t know if that’s better or worse for Jack to believe.

“Holy shit,” he whispers when he’s sure they’re safe, enunciating the words slowly, head spinning. “I thought for sure he knew somethin’ was up.” Then, right on the heels of that, he hits Miles again while Miles titters loudly against his throat and shrinks away from him and to the side. “The fuck was that shit anyway, Miles? Did you fucking _want_ us to get caught, you sick fuck?” he asks.

“Hey now, I thought it’d be funny!” Miles says defensively, still laughing into Michael’s skin like what just transpired was an absolute riot of a time. “And it was! Dude, you _totes_ had him. When he asked if y—”

Miles cuts himself off abruptly and immediately the laughter stops with it, jaw clenching. Miles remains quiet for a suspended moment of time, not moving even when Michael places his hands over Miles’s back, and then Miles’s whole body comes to life again as he starts shaking through an even louder, more uncontrollable laughter that’s muffled into Michael’s shoulder, head shaking like he just can’t believe it.

“What?” asks Michael, unnerved by just how raucously Miles is laughing over this.

“He said ‘y’all’ when he asked if you wanted anything,” Miles points out while half-laughing and half-scoffing in disbelief. He sounds utterly amazed.

“Well, fuckin’, _yeah_. No shit, Miles. Welcome to Texas. It’s in the South. People are Southern here and they talk like it.”

Miles pulls away from Michael’s neck, up on his forearms again and staring down at Michael, and the look on Miles’s face makes the sheer absurdity of the situation impossible to ignore and sets Michael on edge.

“No, obviously I know that. _Hello_ , I’m actually from here, Jersey Boy. It’s just that, I mean… it’s plural. As in, y’know, _more_ than one. As in, he totally knew I was here and had to address more than one person.”

Michael’s face blanches, mouth going dry, heart falling so quickly into his stomach it’s like someone’s tied a concrete brick to it and threw it into the water.

“Oh fuck.” That’s it. He can’t think of anything else to say.

“I know. This is gonna make things really awkward when I have to ask him for a ride home and can’t pretend I didn’t just pass out in the living room while drunk last night like I was going to.”

“You were going to act like you were here all night?” he finds himself asking despite himself, embarrassed that Jack knows but shocked enough by what Miles is telling him that he can focus on that instead.

“Sure. I mean, what else was I going to do? Sneak out and walk home? I live half an hour away from here. I couldn’t walk that far. Well, I could definitely try, but would I want to? Absolutely not is the answer.”

That’s exactly what Michael thought Miles was going to do.

“But I think now would be as good a time as any to ask if it’s cool with you if I borrow your shower and rinse off,” Miles continues. “You got the whole shebang — shampoo, condish, soapy-soap — but I just need to clean up and get decent before Jack gets back here and I have to pretend that we weren’t fucking all night. He probably already knows we were, but it’s not like I’ma tell him that and I don’t think he’s gonna want to speculate on what we’ve been doing in here this whole time.”

Michael’s at a loss for what to say to that. He doesn’t know how Miles is just breezing past all of this when he’s still so worried about how Jack’s going to react and if he’s going to ever let Michael live this down. But Miles is right. He’s got to focus now, because if Jack’s coming back then they need to become as presentable looking as possible. He doesn’t even let the way Miles shortens conditioner to ‘condish’ throw him off, which he’s quite proud of, considering the ludicrousy of shortening a word that totally doesn’t need shortening.

“Yeah... I-I guess,” Michael agrees while nodding, voice wavering.

The back of Miles’s hand comes up to brush along Michael’s cheek and Michael’s heart sputters to a halt again, the quiet intimacies Miles shows him more shocking than the rest. There’s something regretful in the look he gives Michael then, the frown on his lips plaintive and awfully sorry.

“I’m not going to be able to fuck you into next week like I’d like to, so the least I could do is make you some food when I’m out of the shower. Would ya’ be okay with that? Let me get some food in you? These hands know their way around a kitchen and the spice rack’s a close friend of el jefe Luna.”

Michael’s heart is beating its way up to his throat, mind splintering into fragile pieces that could snap apart as easily as spun sugar, but he manages to nod despite the way Miles’s touch renders him overwrought and burning. Miles’s knuckles drag out over Michael’s lips, Michael’s breath ghosting out over his fingers, and Michael is anything but accountable for the way his lips press up, yielding and soft against the skin of Miles’s knuckles in a kiss.

“All right, good. I’m gonna just use the towel you had, that cool? _Sure?_ Sweet, dawg, you’re the best,” Miles answers for him, leaning down quickly to kiss Michael’s forehead before he’s ambling up and off of him to cross the room and grab the towel up off the floor. “Be back in a jiff.”

Miles doesn’t bother closing the door behind himself or even wrapping the towel around his waist as he heads to the bathroom, moving around confidently, something in the way he carries himself reading as sensual and arresting even without meaning for it to be. Michael is still laying on his back in the bed, not sure what to look at now that Miles is gone. He looks down about himself and the still present hard-on that’s laying flat along his navel, then further down to the hickeys and bite marks on his hips and thighs.

He’s going to need to find something to cover all the marks on his body up with. He’s also going to have to conjure up that image of Steve Buscemi he had last night, because being left hard and wanting fucking _sucks_. And the worst part is that he just knows that that was Miles’s intention by leaving him high and dry. The prick.

He ends up slipping on some boxer briefs, a pair of sweatpants — pulling the drawstrings tight around where he’s been forced to mask his hard-on under the band of the sweats — and a shirt that does absolutely nothing to cover the bruised bite on the crook between his neck and shoulder or the fresh bite marks and hickeys just below his ears, because who the fuck actually owns turtleneck shirts for that? Michael sure as hell doesn’t. 

Miles didn’t even try to be subtle in marking him, Michael notes while staring at the elongated and distorted reflection of himself in the doorknob of his door. The sight of himself is lewd, red coloring his exposed skin in ways he can’t hide, and there’s a blend between horror and hedonism in having to interact with other people for days after this knowing that they know that he must’ve been up to something thrilling by the marks at his throat. He won’t be able to go to the Live Action event this week at the waterpark unless he’s got his top on, definitely not wanting to go through the heavy grilling he knows he’d get for the bite marks and hickeys all over his chest as well.

And not only does that suck, but what’s further unfortunate is that the image of Steve Buscemi is just as hopeless as last night and is made even more useless in trying to get him to stop thinking about how hard he is, because just as Michael’s walking past the bathroom door to see if there’s anything in the kitchen worth making he can hear Miles moan, not even trying to be quiet about it since Jack’s gone now. 

It’s enough to paint Michael a clear mental picture of Miles fisting himself, soap all over his body and pooling in the rough thatch of hair above his cock, his forehead resting against the tiles of the shower wall, probably thinking about Michael sucking him off and making those noises he said he wanted to hear from him. Michael entertains the fleeting thought of joining him before remembering that both him and Miles being wet when Jack gets back will only be extra incriminating.

So he finds himself standing there for a few seconds while he listens to Miles curse and pant as the water falls on the floor of the bathtub like white noise, trying to quickly get himself off. Then, however, he realizes just how creepy he’s being and visibly shakes himself and marches into the kitchen, more hard than he was even when Miles was rutting into him on the bed a few minutes ago. There’s something better in knowing that Miles is getting off by himself right now while thinking about him. Michael doesn’t even feel like he’s being a bit too narcissistic because there’s not a doubt in his mind that that’s exactly what Miles is doing.

It takes him minutes before he registers that he’s been standing in the center of the kitchen like an idiot just thinking about Miles and what exactly he’s doing. The thought of what he might be imagining acting out with Michael is intoxicating, the mystery of it tantalizing, so it’s not like anyone can really blame Michael for getting distracted. He feels a bit embarrassed thinking about it, though, even when he was just in bed with Miles. He doesn’t know if he should bring it up when Miles gets out of the shower or not, but his mind strays from the plot again and then he’s thinking about what could happen if he said something teasing about it and Miles ended up lifting him onto the kitchen counter.

Again, he has to shake himself free from the obscenely pornograpic nature of his thoughts (he’d like to blame his still _very_ present boner) and focus on mechanically opening the fridge and looking into it for something to eat. He hears the water in the shower turn off a minute or two later while he’s checking cabinets and considering his options. The bathroom door opens as he notices they have eggs and that that’s an acceptable enough breakfast food. Then as he’s searching for a pan he hears what he assumes is his bedroom door close. He’s found a box of protein bars above the fridge when the door opens again and then the telltale sign of floorboards creaking that follows it as Miles roams around trying to find him.

Michael absurdly has the passing thought to try and hide somewhere and then jump out at Miles to scare him before he reminds himself that that’s the stupidest, most childish fucking idea he’s ever had in his life. But, still, he goes to move away from the fridge, possibly to hide behind it, just before he’s hit with a wave of something spicey, a clean scent not unlike nutmeg and talc overwhelming the room.

Michael realizes that it’s the bodywash he uses just as Miles hooks his head around Michael’s shoulder a second later. Miles’s chin is damp on his shoulder and so is his hair where it’s tickling Michael’s ear and making Michael want to twist away like he needs to sneeze, but before he can act on the instinct Miles’s hands anchor around his hips and he’s mollified in an instant, melting back against Miles’s chest and soaking up the heat of him like a flower under the warm rays of sunlight.

“What’re you doing?” Miles questions at Michael’s aborted flailing, sounding lazy and content as he turns his nose into the side of Michael’s neck. He presses a dry kiss there and Michael’s whole body trembles like a cold chill, Miles too soft with him now for his heart to do anything but give out.

Michael shrugs, definitely not going to tell Miles that he started panicking without anything to do with his hands as Miles waltzed into the kitchen and didn’t know how to act casual about it.

Miles is warm and smells like soap and Old Spice shampoo — smells overpoweringly like Michael now in an entirely new way compared to when they were in bed — and it’s enough to make him drunk off of it. But the worst part is that it’s devastating. His heart shaken up and his head spinning when he has Miles like this along his back, pressing into his skin, showering him with tender gestures of affection like they’re a secret little treat that he’s not allowed to have before supper, trying to take care of him and put him together with his bare hands after pulling him apart all night and all morning.

Michael makes absolutely no plans to move from this position, could stay like this for an eternity, until his and Miles’s bones are turning to dust together, spreading out across the ground on a breeze. There’s no earthly coffin big enough to contain the way Michael feels sky-high and endless when Miles holds him like this means something. Like he wants him. Like he can have him for breakfast every morning, eggs sunny side up, orange rinds making his fingers sticky where they lay on Michael’s chest, palpitations against the palm of his hand.

But of course there’s no Disney logo at the start of this film. No magic here that can suspend time. Miles has to let him go.

Miles pulls away first at Michael’s ungiving silence and then it only makes sense that Michael turns around to look at him. It takes him a fleeting moment to register what he’s seeing and then his heart works in overtime in his chest to try and beat itself into a coma against his ribs, the sight of Miles too much to bear. 

If Miles looked sleepy and boyish after having just woken up then Michael has no idea how to describe him now, standing freshly washed and glowing before Michael. Miles’s hair is a mess, obviously having been rubbed at wildly with a towel, a knotted tuft lying just-so over his forehead. His beard isn’t as unkempt as it was earlier, now shaved down to nothing more than a stubble that explains the tingling on Michael’s neck from where he was placing kisses there. His nose and cheeks are either pink from being scrubbed raw under the hot water or the more racy reality of what he was doing in the shower, but either way the flush is lovely against his skin. 

And as if that wasn’t already enough to ruin him, Miles has seemingly found himself a change of clothes — _Michael’s_ clothes; he’s walking around in a loose pair of Michael’s old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boxers and a shirt that Michael is pretty sure has been stretched out from the wash, because there’s no way Miles could fit into one of his newer, form fitting shirts, too broad in comparison to him and taller. Miles looks good, though, in his clothes.

And, in a word, Michael’s terrified. Scared shitless by this unthinking intimacy of sharing something, the thundering fondness that it brings bubbling up to the surface as Miles tugs at the collar of his shirt — _Michael’s_ shirt — like he’s thinking about trying to find a larger shirt to put on of Michael’s.

Miles looks handsome and smells clean, the scent of Michael’s bodywash homely and familiar on him. When Miles skims his fingertips through the hair just above his ear like how girls tuck their hair behind their ears when they’re flirting — something extended enough in the act that Michael can tell it’s a habit of his — it’s enthralling to watch. He ruffles the thick of his hair atop his head afterwards and his fingers catch on the tangled knot over his forehead only to tug it loose. It’s an absent movement, relaxed, and Michael doesn’t know how Miles can remain so calm when standing around in Jack’s apartment while wearing Michael’s clothes after everything they’ve done together. Michael can’t even look at Miles too long without getting embarrassed.

Michael wants to keep him and he knows he can’t, that this is just for the rest of the morning. His heart hurts when he thinks about it, but it’s unavoidable.

For a moment Michael thinks he simply imagines Miles asking, unintentionally poignantly, “You figure out what you want from me yet?” but then Miles dips his head to meet Michael’s eyes after a beat, his brows raised, and asks again, “You pick out something for me to make you, Michael, or do I just have free reign over the kitchen?”

“Oh,” he replies with a start, looking about himself and then towards the stove, caught off guard. “Right, um, we don’t really have jack shit? Like, since Jack didn’t go grocery shopping yesterday. But there’s eggs in the fridge and a pan somewhere in this fuckin’ place. You could look around, though, if you wanna see if you can find something else,” Michael offers with a widespread gesture of his hands around the kitchen as if to say, _‘Have at it.’_

“I’m sure I could whip something up. Trust me, Michael, I'm not Clark Kent in the kitchen, I'm like Superman. I _so_ got this.”

Miles starts moving about the kitchen without another word, pulling out the crate of eggs and some vegetables Michael hadn't even accounted for in the shelving of the fridge. It takes Miles not even a minute to find the same pan Michael was looking for for ages (it was under the stove, apparently) and then he’s using a butter knife to cut off a square of butter to drop it down into the pan where it sizzles and melts into liquid, sliding along and coating the bottom of the pan as Miles moves it around with a spatula. 

He moves past Michael who’s just standing there dumbly and his hand slides over Michael’s lower back, fingers scratching there distractingly while he reaches past Michael to grab something off the top of the fridge, right in Michael’s space. Michael finds himself having to blink his eyes open when Miles’s hand is gone, trancelike as he looks about the room again. He discerns belatedly that what Miles has in his hands now as he fusses about with the cabinets is the half-empty box of pancake mix that Michael spilled on the floor once, hence why it’s half-empty. 

And it goes like that for a while. There’s the business of cooking, the sizzling of the pan on the hot stove, the rote whirring of the plastic ceiling fan above them, the seemingly abstract and drawn-out crawl of time passing by in the morning, everything mundane and domestic enough it’s like a suburban daydream. Like this is normal. A morning routine they do every day. 

It’s unreal. 

There’s something so alien about the way Miles taps his foot on the floor and drums his fingers restlessly over the counter when he pauses for even a second. He grabs something, spins it in his hands, puts it back, picks it up again, sets it back down. He goes from investigating one cabinet to digging around in another, searching for more stuff he needs without even asking where anything is, determined to find everything on his own. He stretches his arms above his head, shirt riding up and exposing his stomach, his happy trail drawing Michael’s attention, and yawns loudly before fiddling with the dials on the stove. 

Miles looks like he owns the place, like he has a monopoly over the kitchen, meanwhile Michael’s the one who feels like an outsider in his own apartment.

Michael stands there with nothing to do while Miles hums, preoccupied, and moves about from one end of the small kitchen to the next, touching Michael every time he brushes past him until Michael feels like he’s going to go mad, overly sensitive along the back of his neck where Miles seems to like touching the most before tugging at the still damp curls there. It’s unheeding, not intentionally stimulating, and Michael _knows_ this. He knows that Miles doesn’t mean a thing by it, just a very tactile person, but Michael feels like he’ll blow up any second now if Miles keeps at it.

He feels like he’s a continuity error in a movie, in one frame he’s there and then in the next he’s gone; one of the Top Ten Worst Mistakes In Film You Won’t Believe Made It To Screen. There’s no other way to explain it, he just feels distinctly out of place and like he’s not supposed to be here like this, incongruous with the setting. Like he doesn’t deserve to experience this kind of domesticity and warmth. Like he’s a voyeur watching Miles when he shouldn’t be.

Something’s just off about this whole scene. Michael doesn’t understand any of it, can’t wrap his head around it.

Miles, now cleaning everything up that he got out, moves to put the empty box of pancake mix in the trash behind Michael. When Miles’s hand extends out to touch his side he can’t be held accountable for the way he flinches away, side-stepping past Miles’s hand and pressing back against the fridge.

Miles stops in his tracks, the tune he was humming cutting off prematurely, and the empty pancake box is frozen in his hand where it dangles precariously just above the trash bin. Miles blinks, wide-eyed like an owl, and turns to look at Michael like he’s seeing him for the first time.

“What’s wrong?” Miles asks immediately, the hand extended to where Michael was once inhabiting falling to his side after not catching the love handle on Michael’s hip.

The box drops into the trash with a thump that seemingly echoes as silence otherwise fills the air like a gas, taking up the entire space of the kitchen and settling into all of the corners and the little cracks in the plaster of the ceiling.

Michael has to let out a harsh breath through his nose before he can say anything.

“You keep touching me,” he tells Miles with about as much control on his vocal register as he can manage while wanting to scream.

“Uh…” Miles looks around uneasily, clearly puzzled and maybe a little hurt by the implication that that’s wrong, that touching Michael is off limits and horrible. “Sorry?”

Michael keeps going undeterred. “You keep touching me and it’s just like last night when you kept going and going until I was a fucking human disaster scene and couldn’t even make sense of anything.”

Miles pales, his face washing out of any color, and he looks suddenly very, very sickly. He doesn’t even get to talk because Michael is still going, cheeks heating as he runs his mouth like there’s a vendetta that won’t ever end spilling from his lips, off the tip of his tongue like a thrillseeker running off the edge of a mile high gorge and into the unfathomable kill below.

“And I was so lost and goddamn confused and every time you touched me it was like I could breathe again, but then you kept touching me. You didn’t stop and I didn’t even— I didn’t even want you to even when I was so fucking confused. And I kept breathing and breathing until it felt like my lungs were going to bust because it was too much,” Michael’s hands are in his hair, raving, “and they were being filled more with you than me. And that doesn’t even make any goddamn sense but it’s the only way I can describe it. And you were _everywhere_ and I-I don’t think I even realized I was crying again until you kissed me and your face came off wet from mine.

“And it was like... it was like… like…” Michael can’t come up with anything, grasping at nothing in the air before him like he’s trying to show Miles. Miles looks like he has no idea what’s going on and is more than a little horrified. “I don’t fuckin’ know, but every time you’d call me some stupid pet name I wanted to hate it so badly. I wanted to be so pissed at the fucking cheesiness of it, but you’d say them and I’d forget how to talk or do a single goddamn thing other than stare at you like a fucking idiot. I hate nicknames, just fucking call me by my actual name.”

Michael’s spitting, he’s so worked up. His senses are all fried and flayed raw. His skin feels like it’s on fire and everything is so loud, the fan above them unbearable in the way it chops angrily through the air and drowns out his voice, so loud that he doesn’t even register that he’s practically yelling.

“But I didn’t hate it from you. I didn’t, I really didn’t. And you kept doing it just like how you kept touching me and you did it again earlier and I couldn’t even make sense of what the fuck was happening. And, like, fuckin’, _all_ I can do is _watch_ you. You make me go quiet and I forget to even breathe half the fuckin’ time. I don’t even think anything when I watch you, either. I haven’t done or said a single goddamn thing since you came into this room other than now.” Michael’s gripping at the back of his neck fleetingly before throwing his hands out in front of him, gestures just as frantic as he is. “Not because I didn’t have anything thing to say, either, I’ve got shit to say. So much shit, but none of it makes _any fucking sense!”_

His voice is turning into yelling now. It’s loud, and angry, and torrential. Vulnerable. He’s so vulnerable. It’s all pouring out of him incessantly now, someone stealing a rock from the foundation of the dam containing his thoughts and sending them flooding out over everything else, drowning out everything rational in its volatile and righteous anger. 

“Like what does any of this shit mean?! Why’m I the only one freaking the fuck out over here?! I’ve never even kissed a guy before let alone done whatever the fuck we’re doing! You’re just fucking cooking food for me and wearing my clothes and calling me names and _touching_ me!” Michael’s breathless. “Do you even realize you keep touching me?!”

Miles opens his mouth but nothing comes out, all the words he has have been ripped from him, his head shaking minutely like he can’t make sense of anything Michael’s saying, like Michael’s words are too jarring to understand. Michael might as well be talking in tongues. 

Michael starts laughing and he doesn’t even know why.

“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, you hadn’t even noticed! Of course you didn’t! I’m over here losing my goddamn mind like a fucking dumbass and you’re just thinking about whatever stupid song you keep humming to yourself! And I’m not even mad at you! I’m mad at my stupid fucking self and my stupid fucking— my idiot brain, because there’s something! _Something_! And I can feel it gnawing at me like a parasite’s trying to eat me from inside out!”

Miles is moving now, searching around in the cabinets again, noises discordant as he closes drawers and rattles around in cabinets, until he comes back to Michael’s side cautiously. Michael doesn’t even look at what he’s grabbed, just keeps going.

“And it’s all because of you and whatever the fuck we’ve done here! I was fine! But then you kissed me and kept kissing me and chased after me and I fucking— I fucking wanted it! It doesn’t make any sense! You put your hands all over me and I was sobbing like a baby and I never fuckin’ cry, but you _made_ me! You pulled it from me and didn’t think it was weird and told me it was normal and that I’m normal and fine and that nothing’s weird about me feeling so much! So much, Miles, there’s so much I’m feeling! And I can’t believe how much you make my heart hurt when you touch me!”

Miles is nodding, holding his breath, allowing Michael to really let him have it while he’s turning something over in his hands, searching Michael’s face for something that he can’t find.

“I-I-I’m not— I’m not even sure! About anything! Everything! I’m not even sure what this means and why you keep touching me without realizing it and I’m so fucked! What do I do, huh?! You’re in my kitch— fuck, it’s not even _mine_ it’s _Jack’s_! But… but you’re here! Still! Making food and humming and smelling like me and if you fuckin’— if you touch me one more fucking time I might break!”

The sudden silence is smothering, deafening, too loud for comfort, and says so much that in the beat it takes Michael to breathe haggardly he’s at the finish line of his thoughts, the dam running dry.

“I… I’d…” Michael’s reached the pinnacle, his voice breaking off, going quieter, suddenly not yelling at all, this exposed and wounded openness in the sudden hush. Everything’s coalescing together and his brain is catching up with him. He’s panting so hard he’s gone lightheaded. “I would… Miles, I think I’d burn up. And I think I couldn’t… I wouldn’t be able to stop you if you wanted to burn me.”

Miles looks about as hurt as Michael sounds, his whole face in pieces. Michael can’t bear to meet his eyes anymore, finally looks down from Miles’s face and at where he’s been turning over a crumpled handful of napkins. He stares for a long, hard minute at Miles’s hands, the tightness in his chest unbearable.

“I don’t know what to do with any of this,” he whispers, the shake in his voice unforgiving. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with stupid fucking senseless feelings like this. My chest hurts, like, actually fuckin’ _hurts_ like I’ve been shot. That’s never happened to me before. I’ve never… I’ve never felt like this. And it’s not easy. I’ve never even looked… or maybe I have… I-I think I might’ve known for a while now about… about this. Not for you, but for… for other guys. I just didn’t… couldn’t, really… I just couldn’t get myself to pay attention. I feel like an idiot.”

Miles steps closer when Michael doesn’t immediately continue ranting and the hitch in Michael’s breath is audible. Miles puts his hands up, careful, moving slowly so as to not startle him.

“Easy, Michael, I’m just gonna clean your face for you. You’re kind of a mess right now.”

Michael blinks and it’s just like last night all over again as he comes out of whatever angry fog he worked himself up into and realizes the harsh reality before him: his face is in fucking _shambles_. His eyes are burning, cheeks wet, nose running disgustingly, fat tears pooling at his chin. He doesn’t even know how long he’s been crying for. The embarrassment roils around in his stomach horribly along with whatever the fluttering of his pulse as Miles comes nearer means.

Miles goes to put a hand on one of Michael’s cheeks before he seemingly thinks better of it and just hovers his palm there, mere centimeters away from Michael’s skin. With his other hand he brings up the napkins and wipes across Michael’s cheeks and then his chin, having to flip the napkins over before he pinches Michael’s nose with them like he’s handling a messy toddler and not an adult. 

Michael feels like a fool, like he’s some overly sensitive child and not a fully grown adult that can handle himself. He doesn’t feel like himself at all and instead has the sense that he’s someone else entirely different now, an unstable, fumbling, disaster of a person. Miles is right, he really is a mess right now.

Miles swipes under Michael’s nose after folding the napkins again, wiping at his lips, at the divot above his chin, and then he’s moving away and tossing the napkins into the trash. He turns back to Michael and for once Michael can tell that Miles doesn’t really know what to say, opening his mouth and then closing it like a shoddy puppet with a broken jaw. It takes him a long, uncomfortably tense moment before he actually says anything.

“I think, uh, I think you need to sit down. And I think that, maybe, we should talk about this? But at a better time. You, like— Michael you just had a full-blown meltdown. And it’s… it’s clear, uh, that you have some stuff you’re figuring out because of…” Miles looks around for a minute searchingly, comes up empty-handed and floundering, and says lamely, “...this. Whatever, uh, whatever this is? Which is whatever you want it or don’t want it to be, man. I mean, you know, you obviously have, like, stuff to work out.”

Miles swallows, licks at his lips, does that hair tucking thing again that doesn’t actually do anything when Miles only has short hair. It’s obvious that he wants to help Michael, but the outburst has spooked him. Michael’s horrified too, but at the same time he feels better. Like he’s floating now that the weight of all his thoughts has finally been lifted from his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Michael manages to croak out, throat raspy from yelling and — apparently — crying.

“Yeah, uh… right.” Miles’s hand moves jerkily as he goes to touch Michael’s neck before he stops himself, looking down at his hand limply stretched out between the two of them like he’s staring at a traitor. “Right…” Miles drops his hand, everything about him awkward, restrained, and lacking all of the confidence he once had. “I, uh, I think I should go? It sounds like you want… me to go?”

Michael’s heart thumps once painfully, a rigor washing through him at just the mere suggestion of Miles leaving, hands going clammy. That’s not what he wants at all. If Miles leaves it’ll be on such a sour note and Michael doesn’t know that he’d be okay with that, doesn’t think that he could let this be the last thing they say to each other, the last way they see each other.

“That’s not what I meant,” he insists, sniffling and scrubbing at his eyes hard enough that he sees black phosphene spots dancing all around Miles when he pulls his hands away.

Miles scratches at his neck, stilted. “Then what did you mean, because, to me at least, it sounded a lot like you didn’t want me to touch you or be around you. And I don’t want to just leave you here by yourself like this after that breakdown or whatever you just had but, uh. But if that’s really what you need I’ll leave and call someone to pick me up at the corner or something. Like, I can just go.”

Michael doesn’t know how Miles managed to somehow misconstrue everything he said to mean that. Or, well, maybe some of what Michael remembers yelling about could be taken that way and maybe it’s not completely obtuse to think that’s what he was saying. But he didn’t mean it like that, honest. It was… he was saying that he… that he… wait, what was he trying to say?

Michael shakes his head vaguely, confused by himself as his head swims like he’s in a post-cry stupor. Everything is too hazy.

“I don’t know, I don’t know at all, okay? But I don’t… I don’t want you to _leave_.”

“Michael,” Miles sighs, rubbing at the nape of his neck for something to do with his hands other than use them to reach out and try to touch Michael.

“Fuckin’ hell, Miles, do I have to spell it out for you? I don’t want you to go at all, okay? I didn’t mean to say all that to make you think I wanted you to leave or like—”

“To make it sound like I ruined your life by sleeping with you?” Miles interrupts to ask, just looking at Michael, his face unnervingly unreadable.

Michael stills instantly, going completely slack jawed. “You thought I was saying that?”

“You said everything was fine until I kissed you. You said that if I touched you you’d get burned like you think I’m trying to hurt you or something,” Miles maintains and his voice — the way it sounds — is so sad it breaks Michael’s heart.

“That’s… I meant that you were making me have to… have to _think_. Like, about myself and how I-I see myself and my, ya’ know, sexuality or whatever. And I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to make you think I was horrified or something about what we did. I… I was just saying things without thinking about them because I’ve been thinking about them all night and all morning and I just… I just wanted to _not_ think for fuckin’ once.”

Miles looks at his face, really _looks_ at his face, and he must believe him, because the strong mask he put up to protect himself crumbles and his whole body deflates. Miles clutches at his knees and just breathes for a few seconds.

“God, Michael, you made me think I did something horrible like ran over your dog or accidentally pushed you too far. I mean, I thought I was going to straight-up vom for a minute there. You honestly scared the shit out of me.”

Michael tries for an assuring smile but it’s a pretty pathetic one at best after crying and yelling, all watery and sad looking. He’s made this whole situation awkward now and the thought of what Miles must’ve thought he was saying makes his stomach lurch sickeningly. And then his stomach lurches even worse when he realizes that that’s exactly what Miles is going to think for weeks after this when Michael starts avoiding him like the plague. 

Michael takes a guilty gulp, his back still up against the fridge where he places one of his clammy palms and starts toying blindly with a magnet, pulling it off the fridge before letting it snap back in place.

“I’m, um, I’m really fuckin’ sorry, Miles. I just had so much fucking shit on my chest and it was, like, overwhelming, I guess. I just had to get all that shit out before my head exploded and I wasn’t really paying attention to how shitty it must’ve sounded to you. I… I don’t think I was really even talking to you, actually. I mean, I talk to myself a lot so I think I was just yelling at myself for overthinking things but you happened to be in the room at the same time. I mean, I… y’know, I-I feel like an idiot now that I’ve cooled off. You just confused the _fuck_ out of me, dude. Like, I’m not used to this like you are and there’s no walkthrough for what I’m supposed to do after all that shit.”

Miles’s face grows visibly softer, looser, no longer uneasy as he nods along to what Michael’s saying. Michael can see Miles’s hands twitch and tighten at his sides and he can tell that Miles wants to reach out to him but still thinks he shouldn’t. Michael hates that. Hates that he made Miles think for even a second that he didn’t want him closer, doubting every signal he got from Michael from last night till now, Michael sounding so much like his old self that Miles probably got whiplash from suddenly being pushed away and told to fuck off again.

It’s going to be even worse later, Michael knows this. He’s just stringing Miles along the more he drags this out before Miles leaves. The more he says the more Miles is going to be confused out of his mind by what Michael’s going to inevitably do.

Still, Michael assures Miles, greedy for Miles to touch him again, “I didn’t mean that, like, you _shouldn’t_ touch me, I was just trying to describe… describe what it felt like, I guess? I was trying to make sense of what you were, um, making me feel. I meant it in a good way. You make me feel like I’m on fire when you put your hands on me, but it’s not a bad feeling. I, um, you know. I like it. I like everything you give me. I’m sorry if I freaked you out.”

Finally, Miles stops clenching his hands, releasing the white-knuckled fists he was making to control himself. He still doesn’t touch Michael, however, and Michael’s aching for it the longer Miles staves off from doing it. He’s gotten so used to Miles touching him since last night that he’s sure he’s going to have withdrawal-like symptoms once Miles is gone.

“No, Michael, hey, man, you don’t have to apologize. You never have to apologize for this. I’m not— I’m not _mad_ at you,” Miles swears fervently, at a loss for why Michael would ever feel like he has to apologize for talking about how he feels. “That was obviously a long time coming and I’m just glad you finally got it off your chest.”

Miles shrugs, a timid, close-lipped smile playing at his mouth as he makes an aborted movement with his hand almost to his ear, like he realized he was about to touch above his ear again and had to force himself not to. He toys with the collar of his shirt instead, tugging it slightly, and Michael’s so endeared by how nervous and twitchy Miles is that he feels like he’s falling further and further down some awfully hopeless rabbit hole.

“Don’t get me wrong, though, man, you really fuckin’ freaked me out,” Miles admits, looking a bit sheepish but still somehow managing to sound sure of himself. “Like, straight up, Michael, just thinking about the _possibility_ of forcing you to try something you don’t want to is terrifying.”

“But you didn’t,” says Michael, shaking his head.

“Yeah, but if… if I ever cross a line or something please, please, _please_ tell me,” Miles beseeches doggedly, honest and raw, his gaze focused solely on Michael’s. “I won’t try and force you to try something you’re not ready for or touch you when you don’t want to be touched, you feel me? Communication’s really important to me and I think, uh, that you shouldn’t have to keep all this stuff bottled up like that. You can talk to me. I like to think my boyish charm and warm personality make most people think of me as a good listener.”

Michael doesn’t know what to say to that. Doesn’t know anything when it comes to Miles. He’s just quiet, picking at his bottom lip with his index finger and thumb absentmindedly before he catches himself doing it and drops his hand, tucking his arms behind his back instead of fidgeting.

Standing across from Miles without touching, holding himself back like that, has his heart stinging.

He shakes his head and whispers confoundingly to himself, “What are you doing to me?”

The question is met with a head tilt as Miles smiles gently at him, just that edge of insecure shyness turning his smile saccharine and sweet like honey.

“Nothing you don't already want me to be doing to you, hopefully.”

“I’d, um,” he begins before stopping. Betraying himself, he starts blindly messing with the magnets on the fridge again, palms clammy and his fingers alight with nervous tremors. “I’d tell you if you did something I didn’t like. Yeah. I feel you or whatever.”

The smile he’s rewarded with for that is eye-wateringly bright. “Good. That’s good, Michael. And I get you, man, you don’t have to explain yourself anymore. I should really go back to the food, though. I mean,” Miles looks to the stove, the smell a little off, “I’m pretty sure I burned something over on the stove.”

Michael doesn’t think he’s even hungry anymore after all of that.

“Still think you should sit down,” Miles suggests after a beat of silence, gesturing towards the humble table pushed into the corner of the kitchen that’s furthest from the stove with his chin.

Michael follows his gaze and purses his lips, sniffs loudly for a final time, and then he’s propping his legs up on the empty seat of the chair next to him as he sits down, body sideways in the chair with his back pressed against the wall. There’s only two chairs at the table, both of which are worn from extended use, and Michael takes the time to distract himself by thumbing at the etched name of what he assumes is one of the kids that belonged to the people from whatever garage sale Jack must’ve gotten the chairs from.

He finds that distracting himself is the best option in opposition to the way the sight of Miles makes his heart go weak and soft, but he can only find so many things of interest at the table before he’s back to sneaking in quick glances at Miles.

There’s homely humming filling up the room again, Miles seemingly incapable of being entirely quiet even in the morning. There’s a tapping noise coming from where Miles is back at the stove now (he did dump something in the trash from the pan, though, so he really must’ve burned something) and Michael chances a glance over, eyes on the broad line of Miles’s back and the busy shuffling of Miles’s hands over the opened carton of eggs and then to another pan on the stove.

He’s still vacantly messing with the etched in name on the back of his chair when Miles pauses in cracking eggs over the pan to pinch the hem of his shirt and tug it away from his chest, lifting it at first to expose his stomach and wipe at his brow. He’s flapping his shirt to get air flowing under it after, hot from the busted air conditioning and the pop and sizzle from the eggs on the stove, when he turns towards Michael and catches Michael openly staring with parted lips and a dry mouth. 

Michael’s ears burn red hot as he belatedly looks away and towards the table, trying to pretend like he wasn’t just staring at as much of Miles’s exposed stomach as he could get his fill of. His embarrassment is palpable in the air, palms sweating as he rubs them dry over his thighs. Despite his embarrassment, a few seconds later he still risks chancing what he hopes to be a surreptitious sidelong look to Miles over his shoulder. 

He inhales sharply, coughs a bit as he chokes on his own spit and almost bites off his tongue, and bows up when he accidentally meets Miles’s eyes. Miles is smiling over at him with his arms akimbo, his whole body turned toward Michael like he was watching him too, obviously having been aware of Michael’s ogling the whole time.

“Cute,” Miles mutters to himself before turning back to root around in the cabinets instead of watching Michael make a fool out of himself by thumping at his chest and trying to catch his breath.

It was almost too quietly said for Michael to pick up on it, but he did and now his heart is fluttering like he’s in some cheesy romcom movie. He hates that Miles makes him feel like a fumbling, inexperienced teenager by doing nothing more than meeting his gaze and calling him terms of endearments that he’d bite anyone else’s head off for.

Michael has to shake himself, tries to focus on literally anything else other than Miles or his feelings — whatever they may be. He settles on grabbing Jack’s old sudoku booklet up from the table and flips through the pages until he finds one that’s otherwise been left untouched and tries to solve it. He doesn’t have a pen to write down the answers with. He huffs under his breath and sets the booklet back down off to the side and instead fiddles with a stray twist tie that has been left on the table from a loaf of bread.

He makes it all of two minutes before he angles himself towards Miles again and resumes watching as Miles cooks. He glances from Miles to the open archway of the kitchen and the ample distance between them. He could leave if he wanted. He could just go back to his room, lock the door behind himself, and wait until Jack has come and gone with Miles. 

Miles has his back to Michael and subsequently the exit, humming and only paying attention to whatever he’s flipping in one of the pans.

Maybe Miles wants this. Maybe he wants Michael to make that choice, to decide whether or not he wants to stay or go. Maybe this silence masquerading as the business of cooking is all just for show. Maybe it’s just Miles’s way of giving Michael space, of allowing him the chance to say, _“So this may just be the scariest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I want to see where this goes. I want to chase this feeling and see where it takes me.”_

He’s packed into the corner of the kitchen, back right up against the wall, and Miles is walking openly around the entire space of the kitchen. The contrast is apt, Michael congested and held aloft at the table while Miles is breezily rooting in cabinets and using Michael’s kitchen like it’s his own, like he’s comfortable here, like he’s got nothing to be insecure about or second-guess, no worries.

Michael licks his lips, eyes flittering back and forth unsurely.

He watches Miles again, watches the movement of sinew in Miles’s arms as he moves to plate whatever it is he’s finished making in one of the pans. The movement is careful, Miles putting in the work to make sure he doesn’t fuck anything up while he slowly uses a spatula to slide the food onto both plates he’s set out on the counter. It’s that care that goes into making and serving Michael’s food that has Michael settling. It’s the lovemaking of the domestic, the kind of tending to you do for your most loved one. 

Michael lets that thought wash over him, lets that concern and attention to what he wants and what he deserves leach the doubt from his mind.

There’s a shuffling from over by the stove, a click as Miles turns off a dial, and before Michael can straighten up all the way Miles is standing between the chairs with two plates of food that smell delicious enough that Michael’s stomach protests loudly at not already having it in him. He sets the fullest plate down in front of Michael and reserves the other in his hand for a moment so he can tap at where Michael’s legs are still resting in the empty chair.

Michael is about to move his feet off the seat, already mumbling an apology, but Miles sets his plate down and then scoops Michael’s legs up just high enough to slide under them and into the seat. Only when he has Michael’s legs comfortably situated over his lap does he let go of them.

Michael blinks slowly. Miles doesn’t even say anything. Michael looks dazedly at his legs in Miles’s lap and then up at Miles’s profile while Miles starts to fork at his plate.

“Stop staring, you’re giving me performance anxiety, man,” Miles tell him suddenly, still not looking up from his plate.

Michael almost laughs.

“I should move my—” he goes to say, but Miles interrupts him by grabbing at one of Michael’s legs in his lap to still him.

“It’s fine, just eat. Don’t think I didn’t hear your stomach growl, man. Like, I _know_ you gotta be starving, ‘cause I don’t think either of us have ate since the strip club. And, like, that was just peanuts and almonds and stuff in there. That shit’s squirrel food. So go on,” Miles persuades, unintentionally distracting Michael from what he’s saying when his warm fingers slip under the leg cuff of Michael’s sweatpants and encircle his ankle, thumb rubbing at the jut of bone there.

Michael looks to the food on his plate despite the way Miles’s touch — he’s _finally_ touching him again — threatens to lull him to sleep. And Michael hasn’t really had much of a clue as to what Miles has been making this whole time, but what he sees is not what he expects at all.

"I thought... I thought you were just making pancakes?"

"W-Well, I could've, but I wanted to be fancy and my hands were tied since you don’t have much." Miles rubs at the back of his neck nervously, drops his hand to instead fiddle with the edge of the table. He looks from his plate to Michael’s plate, ears red, abashed. "Actually, man, I'm not a great liar. I, uh, I just wanted to impress you. I wanted to give you something, like, to show you I’m good at stuff.”

Miles looks at him at that, gazing at him shyly through his lashes with his chin dipped, and everything inside of Michael trips, stumbles, and falls for hours. Miles’s gaze uproots everything in Michael’s heart until there’s only Miles there, everything inside of Michael intrinsically his with nothing more than one soft, fluttery look.

“What, um, like, what’s that?” Michael asks instead of leaning over to kiss Miles, pointing at what looks suspiciously like a pancake but also not at all like a pancake.

“Uh, y’know, a crêpe? Back when I was still in my dorm I used to get them at the iHop along the I-35 just a ways down from UT.” Miles pauses for a moment at the blank expression on Michael’s face, then asks in disbelief, “Are you telling me you’ve never had a crêpe? ‘Cause, dude, that’s pretty fucked up. They’re just like little thin pancakes.”

“No, I guess I haven’t. But so that’s a crêpe or whatever French sounding shit and I’m not an idiot so it’s only right to assume that that—” he points to the folded over and spiced omelette on his plate next to the crêpe “—is an omelette, right? You didn’t try and be fancy with that?”

Miles snorts but nods to let Michael know he assumed correctly and as he does so his hand trails higher under Michael’s sweatpants, absently rubbing back and forth over Michael’s shin.

“Great. Thanks, I guess. I mean, for the food.” 

“Hey, man, my pleasure,” Miles says with a small smile. “A little Texas hospitality never hurt nobody.”

That makes Michael look up from where he was already cutting into his omelette with his fork.

“Is Texas hospitality always demonstrated by fucking your coworker and making them breakfast in the morning?” Michael asks bluntly as he lifts his fork to his mouth.

Miles makes a noise like he’s just been shot. He chokes on his crêpe, starts smacking at his chest, and rips his hand up from rubbing at Michael’s leg to push back his chair, rush over to the sink, and put his entire head under the faucet as soon as he turns the water on. He takes huge gulps of the water, most of it getting on the collar of his shirt, and when he turns the faucet off after a minute he’s still coughing, though it’s less severe. He wipes excess water off his chin with the back of his hand and turns towards Michael accusingly.

Michael blinks at Miles, chewing as slow as a cow on his food, and does nothing more than shrug apathetically as Miles points at him while half-laughing.

“You almost killed me,” Miles says, voice watery like he could have a coughing fit again at any second. “I almost died in the lamest way possible.”

“Woops,” he says back indifferently, not worried at all. It’s not like Miles was really going to choke to death. He chooses to consider it payback for all the times Miles has made his heart skip while teasing him.

Miles makes his way back over to the table, smiling back at Michael and still snickering quietly to himself and trying not to cough. 

Instead of sitting back in his seat, however, he pulls right up beside Michael and anchors a hand on the back of Michael’s neck without another word. Michael has to swallow his food and tip his head back to look at Miles, face open and curious. As he looks up his heart ricochets in his chest, though, because Miles places his other hand on the edge of the table and bends down to kiss him.

Michael makes a muffled noise of surprise at first as Miles catches his bottom lip chastely, melting back into his chair as Miles leans over him while pulling his mouth away. Miles’s nose nudges Michael’s, both of their mouths parting, barely an inch separating them as they breathe and sway into each other, but Miles doesn’t move in to take the kiss any deeper just yet. He just holds himself there, winding Michael up without really kissing him, fingers twisting in the hair at the nape of Michael’s neck as he hums.

Michael’s not so patient, however.

He hesitantly pushes his tongue past his bottom lip and brings a hand up to the back of Miles’s head, pulling him down more so he can crane his neck upwards and lick into Miles’s mouth. The way they kiss is hot but sluggish this time around, smooth and slow like it’s something to be savoured, a steady flame of desire yet deeper, somehow. Like there’s more than lust here, a tenderness in the cradle of Miles’s hand against Michael’s jaw as it leaves the table, an abundance of adoration in the way Michael sighs into Miles’s mouth.

It smoulders, this kiss, Miles patient as ever and taking his time like he’s got enough of it to spare while Michael wants to pedal to the metal and climb down Miles’s throat. Miles makes Michael slow down, though, settles him like nothing else ever has. Miles pulls away when Michael tries to bite his lip and waits until Michael’s no longer straining to reach him before he starts the kiss over, does it again when Michael tries tugging Miles closer, and again when Michael makes a sort of soft but insistent whining noise.

Miles somehow manages to tone things down when Michael wants only to switch the tone completely to something heavier. Miles keeps it from getting there, even when Michael knows he has to be on the same boat as him, perhaps only holding himself back because of how vulnerable Michael was minutes ago. It’s maddening, that level of control Miles has, the way he can kiss Michael with so much passion while also moving with such unhurried care. It’s soft and it’s calm and it’s a lot like another four letter word that turns Michael’s stomach to knots.

There’s no pressure or goal here, just a mindless sort of kissing; the sort of explorative and unguarded making-out you’d do in your first few weeks of dating someone new. Michael’s only melting further and further into the chair, into Miles’s hand on his neck, into the intoxicating taste of Miles on his tongue, familiar now like it wasn’t before last night. 

If it weren’t for the domesticity of the morning light filtering in from the windows in the kitchen and the food still laid out on the table, Michael would be pushing more to try to take this further. It doesn’t feel right now, though, after spilling so much to Miles, so he doesn’t do anything other than kiss back. Maybe he’d try to rush more if Miles weren’t so consciously keeping him from doing so.

Michael’s cheeks are flushed and warm, his mouth a bit wet, and his jaw is getting tired the longer they keeping making out. The food’s probably gone cold, but Miles doesn’t stop kissing him so Michael doesn’t stop either, just clutches at Miles’s hair, at the front of his shirt, at anywhere he can reach. It’s not like it isn’t stimulating, but he can ignore the flutters in his stomach if Miles can too, not particularly keen on coming off as more desperate than he already has.

Miles pulls away for a moment only to grin, to watch Michael blink up at him wordlessly, and when he leans back for another kiss it’s not so slow this time. It’s not forceful or pressing either, but it isn’t exactly innocent. Miles laves at his bottom lip with his tongue, kisses his top lip, gets just enough filthier that Michael’s heart rate picks up and his breathing turns more haggard.

And right as he chances another bite at Miles’s bottom lip, eager to get at Miles’s mouth now that Miles is allowing him to get dirtier, there’s a loud slamming from somewhere in the apartment and a voice calling, “Hey, Michael! Got you some— oh, shit, is something burning?”

Michael jerks away from Miles in a flurry, hands slipping from where they were holding Miles’s cheeks gently before literally slamming into Miles’s shoulders to push him backwards. Miles stumbles back, hissing a little, and blinks in a shocked sort of daze before the sound of Jack’s voice catches up to him and his eyes widen. He looks at Michael wildly for only a second before he grabs at his (barely touched) plate on the table and takes it to the trash to dump out what he hasn’t eaten and then sets it in the sink, turning on the faucet like he’d been in the middle of washing it when Jack opened up the door.

Michael doesn’t have the time to do anything other than dry his mouth off with the bottom of his shirt before Jack steps into the room, alarmed by the slight smoky smell that’s still hanging in the air.

“It’s okay, it’s all right,” Miles assures over his shoulder, his back to Jack. His voice sounds raspy and Michael covers his face with a hand to hide the blush that spreads upwards from his chest. “It’s just the botched crêpes I made earlier, it’s all good.”

“O...kay. Miles is here and burning stuff,” Jack hazards slowly, brain lagging a bit. He looks around the room uncertainly before his eyes catch on where Michael’s slumped over at the table. “Oh, thank god, I thought I drove to the wrong apartment.”

Michael has no idea what to say but he manages anyhow with a sheepish, awkward wave. “Sup, Jack.”

“Yeah, hey. Miles is here,” Jack informs him like Michael doesn’t already know. He seems very confused. “How long was I gone for?”

Michael doesn’t have a clue, entirely too caught up in Miles the whole morning to keep track of the time. Michael can’t even remember what day it is, actually. His brain’s currently stuck on everything Miles has said, done, and looked like in the past few hours to factor in anything else that’s been going on outside of Miles’s megawatt smile.

Miles clears his throat and pipes up casually, “An hour, probably.”

Jack turns to look at Miles again, squinting behind his glasses. He looks over Miles’s whole body, pauses for a moment, and then mumbles a quiet, “Huh,” under his breath. 

Michael turns to look at Miles too and realizes that what Jack sees frames a pretty obvious picture of what’s been going on between him and Miles. Jack’s the one who does laundry, so it’s no question that he sees the TMNT boxers Miles is wearing and knows who they really belong to, as well as the graphic T-shirt that Michael wears all the time to bed since it’s so stretched-out and comfortable. Which isn’t entirely substantial enough evidence of what’s gone down between them on their own, but pair that with what he must’ve been hearing last night and/or in the morning… and… _well_.

Michael has to look away from Miles, eyes on the swirling wood of the kitchen table.

Jack walks to the table, raises the plastic take-out bags full of food he has, and sets them both down on the table where Miles’s plate once was. He scratches at the back of his head.

“Well, so I see y’all are already eating, but there’s some food in here. I got some just in case you’d change your mind, but I guess you had other plans for breakfast.”

Michael chances a look up in Jack’s general direction but he can’t quite get himself to meet his gaze head-on. He doesn’t look too suspicious. Actually, he looks like he doesn’t see anything weird about this situation at all. Michael blinks, puzzled. He doesn’t know what he’s about to say, but he opens his mouth anyway.

“Sorry, that was me,” Miles interrupts before Michael gets the chance to talk. He’s still scrubbing at the plate in the sink, but Michael knows there’s no way it’s not clean already. He’s just stalling for time so he doesn’t have to come over to the table, probably on Michael’s behalf more than his own. “I was too hungry to wait.”

Jack glances between Miles to Michael, eyeing the both of them up, a pregnant pause, and then says dubiously, “Whoa. There’s some weird energy here, did y’all just fight?”

Michael almost wants to laugh, but he’s too busy choking on his tongue to say or do anything. If Jack didn’t already catch on to the fact that he and Miles spent the night together then Jack must be way less perceptive than Michael gave him credit for. Or maybe he’s just trying to act like he hasn’t caught on to make things less awkward.

Miles, unlike Michael, actually does laugh. “No, no, no fighting here. Definitely not.”

“Well it’s not like I walked in on you guys kissing so why aren’t either of you looking at me?”

The plate in Miles’s hands drops and clatters down to the bottom of the sink, the noise harsh and entirely too loud as it echoes around the room jarringly, soap and water flying and hitting Miles’s chest and arms. Michael and Jack both turn in unison to look towards Miles and from Michael’s position in the room he can see Miles steady himself with both hands on the edge of the sink’s counter, his face red.

Jack turns to look at Michael, the room silent except for the running water, and Michael looks at anywhere but Jack. Out of the corner of Michael’s eyes he can see Jack looking at him a bit closer than before. It takes him way longer than it should to notice that Jack isn’t just staring at him incredulously, but in fact is staring with an incredible amount of focus at his neck, which Miles was anything but subtle in littering with lurid hickeys and blurred sets of teeth marks. There’s no other explanation to draw from that that isn’t the truth.

God. They’re so screwed.

“Wait,” Jack says slowly, his own face twisted like he’s realizing now that he’s been incredibly dense and not unlike an interloper in the domestic scene Miles and Michael were sharing. “Miles has been here all night, hasn’t he? He didn’t only get here after I left?”

Michael places his elbows on the table and puts his face in his hands. This is happening now. Michael’s just got to grimace his way through it.

“Yup,” he concedes, laconic and stilted, voice muffled slightly by his palms.

“So he was the one with you in your room before I left?”

“Yup.”

“And I’m not batshit and he’s definitely wearing your clothes right now, correct?”

Michael hesitates, but admits quietly, “Yup.”

Jack nods to himself like he’s putting all the pieces together now. It takes him a good second to try and process all of the facts, his arms akimbo at his waist and his face going on a journey. When he finally gets it his entire demeanor changes to that of mild petulance, his nose wrinkling like a child after seeing their parents kiss.

“Oh, come on! Jesus, Michael, you guys were having _sex_ with me actually _in_ the apartment? This is just like when I walked in on Griffon and Geoff in the office. I could’ve walked in on y’all doing— oh shit, gross, mental images, mental images, why, nope, no, _nooo_ , no, no thanks! I did not need to think about that!” Jack huffs in both an embarrassed and mortified flurry, shaking his head and waving his hands in front of himself like he’s trying to shoo away his active imagination.

“Hey,” Miles defends, turning finally to meet Jack’s eyes after shutting the water off, “no one told you to _think_ about it. We figured you knew already earlier when you knocked on his door.” Miles crosses his arms and ankles, leaning back against the countertop.

“I didn’t realize it was you of all people and I didn’t realize it was sexual.”

“Okay, for starters, ouch, Jack, what do you mean by ‘you of all people’? I’ve hung out with Michael loads of times, it shouldn’t be so surprising that I came over. And, well… it was me, man,” Miles tells him with a shrug. He grins then, glancing in Michael’s direction just once before he’s back to meeting Jack’s eyes, “And it was. Obviously.”

“I thought Chris just needed a place to crash again after partying downtown like y’all’ve been doing. Since when have y’all started dating?”

From across the cramped kitchen and out of the slight openings between Michael’s fingers he can make out a very faint and light dusting of hickeys under Miles’s ear that vary in size. He spreads his fingers a fraction wider and can see now that Miles’s bottom lip is pearling with a hint of blood from where Michael must’ve accidentally bit Miles’s lip too hard at the startling sound of Jack calling for him. It’s not enough to be dire nor is it enough for Miles to bother with it as he doesn’t even move to wipe it away, but Michael’s acutely aware of it all the same. If it weren’t for the hiss Miles let out just a few moments ago Michael would assume Miles couldn’t feel it all together with how nonchalant he is about it.

The whole scene makes it seem like he’s been caught cheating. Like he’s had some raunchy affair and Jack’s the scorned lover who’s owed an explanation.

He closes his eyes, shuts his fingers, and can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of this whole situation. It’s a quiet, soft sort of snickering to himself, and when he drop his hands from his face he finds Jack and Miles both looking at him.

“We’re not dating, Jack,” Michael tells him with a shake of his head, still half-laughing even when there’s nothing funny, a hollow noise leaving him like a scoff. “It was just a one-off thing. A one night stand or whatever. This is no big deal.”

The way Michael’s stomach does hurdles over his head as he says that betrays him. As if anything about this situation — these past couple of hours — has been anything but life changing. It’s the biggest deal Michael’s been dealt in his life.

But what’s worse than the way his whole body catches his lie is how Miles seemingly doesn’t. 

Miles furrows his brow, a quizzical and dispirited look passing over his face. His mouth moves silently as he parses over the words “one-off thing” to “no big deal,” like he’s mouthing them to himself to process the implications of them. He nods and mumbles something Michael can’t hear but that looks a lot like a hardened, “ _Right_ ,” to steel himself.

“Okay then,” Miles declares suddenly with a clap of his hands together, straightening himself up and uncrossing his ankles. He clears his throat to get Jack’s attention. “Right, so I hate to be a burden, but I do actually have a place I need to get back to. And Brandon dropped me off last night with no plans of picking me up in the morning… so… _Jack_ , my man… did I ever tell you how great you’ve been lookin’ lately? Wanna extend some of that good, good Texas hospitality my way?” Miles tries with a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes, no sparkle there.

Jack chances a hurried look at Michael from the corner of his eyes before he nods over to Miles. Apparently Jack isn’t so obtuse that he’d miss the sudden uncomfortable air, something left unspoken between Miles and Michael that’s going to need to become spoken soon or risk the both of them being hurt more than necessary.

“Yeah, man, I can take you home, but y’all sure you don’t need a minute or two? I could circle the block if there’s somethin’, uh.” Jack looks between them. “Somethin’ for you guys to maybe talk about?”

Michael doesn’t even get the chance to say that _that’s a great and super thoughtful idea, yeah, Jack, give us a couple minutes._ Doesn’t even have the time to say anything at all.

Miles is already wiping his hands on his shirt and crossing over to the doorway, dismissively saying, “Nah, let me just go get presentable. Can’t forget to leave the house without pants on like in all those high school nightmares of mine. I’m not about to be _that_ guy,” as he backs out of the kitchen, hands gesticulating awkwardly.

Michael’s left reeling as he stares after him, the room seeming so much emptier when Miles isn’t in it.

Jack whistles lowly, raising his eyebrows at Michael. “You better go and fix that.”

“There’s nothing to fix,” Michael mumbles defensively while picking his plate up and dumping his food into the trash. “It’s nothing,” he says, putting the plate in the sink. “I’m just gonna… I’m just going to go check something real quick, though,” he explains, passing by Jack who rolls his eyes.

“Sure. Because that sounds believable.”

Michael doesn’t even acknowledge Jack’s sarcasm, too busy trying to think of how he’s going to “fix that” as he follows after Miles to the end of the hall where his bedroom door is left slightly ajar. When he pushes it open the rest of the way he finds Miles fidgeting with his phone, his jeans thrown over the foot of Michael’s bed while he checks the messages he’s missed. He doesn’t outwardly look upset but Michael’s never been that great at reading people. Miles is an anomaly to him.

He steps closer, fingers rubbing at a hickey over his Adam’s apple while he looks over Miles.

“Hey, Miles,” he tries cautiously. “Miles,” he repeats a little bit louder, just enough that Miles actually turns his attention to him. “Hey, I just— I just thought I’d come and tell you that, like, all that shit I just said back there was just to get Jack to ease up on the third degree. I didn’t mean anything by it, I mean. I wasn’t… I don’t think any of what was, um. I don’t think last night was no big deal. You know that, right? Like you’re not in here being all weird and pissed? I was just trying to get him to leave it alone.”

“No, that’s okay if you weren’t, though,” says Miles while setting his phone down. He impassively lifts a shoulder in something resembling a shrug. “Lying. It’s okay if you weren’t lying. I don’t expect you to have feelings or anything, man. I just hope you enjoyed yourself and if you happen to want to continue this, then great. Like, that’d be totally awesome, but you don’t have to lie. I can take rejection, man, it’s not going to kill me. Plenty of fish in that big old sea.”

Michael takes another step and catches Miles’s arm in his grasp as Miles scoops up his jeans and slides his phone into a pocket, stopping him before he gets too far ahead of himself. He doesn’t let go of Miles’s arm as he starts talking.

“No, I mean it. I was only trying to get him to drop the conversation. I don’t have a clue what the shit I’m doing here, but I didn’t… hate it.”

Miles blinks. “Shit, man, don’t overdo it with the Shakespearean pick up lines. You didn’t…” he holds his breath, mimicking Michael’s very same pause dryly, “ _hate_ it? Jesus, Michael, you might as well have just said you were desperately in love with me and want to run away to Vegas together so we can get married withsome guy dressed up like Elvis as our minister. Not hating it is a ringing endorsement coming from you. Like, would you write that down for me and sign it too so I’ve got proof? Them’s bragging rights.”

Michael has to stop himself from bantering back with a bite to his cheek and a shake of his head. He’s trying to be honest here and he doesn’t have to be the fucking Mentalist to realize that Miles is trying to deflect from the conversation self-consciously. He must really think Michael doesn’t want more than this, must think he wasn’t good enough for Michael to want him again or at all. Michael doesn’t know how to handle this without hurting either of them, but fuck if he isn’t going to try to make this as painless as possible.

Michael keeps holding onto Miles’s arm and he does not let go.

“Just shut your mouth for a minute, Miles. Let me, okay? Just let me be serious and just let me get this out because I’m not good with this shit but I’m _trying_.” He stops and makes sure he meets Miles’s eyes and holds that gaze as he says, “It wasn’t just something casual for me. I like you… I like _whatever_ the shit this is. I don’t know where to go from here or if… if this’ll continue, but I just need you to know that. This was something new for me and I don’t just mean that it was the first time a guy’s ever touched my dick or whatever the fuck. I mean, I’m trying… I’m trying to say this is the first time I’ve felt like I could do this again. Like I don’t need a shower after sleeping with someone. I… I don’t know what else to say other than that I _liked_ this.”

And then, with Michael’s cards all laid out on the table, he finally lets go of Miles’s arm.

Miles doesn’t move or say anything, just _looks_ at Michael, searches Michael’s face, and he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t blink at all until Michael cuts his eyes away, not able to handle meeting Miles head-on when he’s staring back so openly. Only then does Miles break the silence, smile coming back to break hearts and flood cheeks.

“That might’ve just been the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me, Michael. I mean, my heart just _melted_. It actually turned to putty in my chest, man.” He shakes his head to himself, patient smile adorning his face. “You’re _adorable_ when you’re like this and I bet no one would believe me if I said how romantic you actually are. I never even would’ve expected that from you before last night. You’re the Rage Quit guy, you know? Like, I just watched you scream your head off while playing Catherine the other day but when you’re not filming you’re like… _this_. You know you’re kind of a softy even with all that anger in you, right?”

Michael frowns and turns to the side so he doesn’t have to look at Miles’s gloating, idiot face. What a prick. “I’m not a fuckin’ _softy_. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t being a baby about what I said. I wasn’t fuckin’ confessing my love like this is some Disney movie. You’re not my idea of Prince Charming.”

Miles’s literal guffawing says more than his words would’ve.

“Shut the hell up,” Michael warns, ears red. “I’m from New Jersey, we don’t get soft, we get hard.”

Miles grins cheekily and Michael already knows what he’s going to say before he even gets the words out.

“Uh-huh. You sure do, you _naughty_ dog,” titters Miles, all smug and playful as he leans over and smacks Michael’s ass with the palm of his hand. 

Which, okay, _that_ wasn’t something he was expecting. Michael can’t be blamed for the way he practically jumps out of his skin at the sudden spank to his ass, sensation leaving his skin to sting. Michael doesn’t exactly… uh… _hate_ that, either, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to let Miles slide after doing it without warning. Even if it was just a bit of lighthearted teasing.

He turns around abruptly, hand on his smarting ass-cheek, to level Miles with a mean squint.

“Fuck, man, did you have to do that so hard?” hisses Michael, rubbing at the now tender skin of his ass through his sweatpants. “I sit at a desk playing video games all day, dumbass, my ass is my livelihood.”

“Ahhh, but see you’ve been rubbing at that hickey I gave you since you walked in here, so I wouldn’t have pinned you down as someone who didn’t like a little reminder that you could feel. And I mean, don’t you like a bit of pain?” Miles asks lightly, quick about it before he goes on, “I didn’t mean to, though, sorry. I guess I just don’t know my own strength. Kyle tells me all the time that my high-fives are too powerful, but I don’t know if I believe that. I think he’s just a huge baby.”

Michael’s too busy reeling at how easily Miles reads him that he misses the implication there that Michael’s also a baby. He drops the hand from his throat, fumbles at nothing for a split second, before ending up twisting the hem of his shirt around a finger to physically restrain himself from touching the smattering of hickeys and bites fading slowly from his skin.

“But I do need to go home now,” Miles admits with a small, regretful smile. “I have Adderall to take or I’ll just forget all together and a _definitely_ hungover roommate that I need to make sure didn’t die while I was gone,” he jokes as he starts tugging on his unwashed jeans over the boxers he’s borrowed from Michael, doing a funny sort of dance with his hands on his ass when his phone almost upends itself from his back pocket. He doesn’t change out of Michael’s shirt and Michael doesn’t plan on pointing out that his actual shirt is just a few feet away by the laundry basket. “You know Kyle, he’s hopeless without me.”

Michael just stares, acutely aware of the beating of his heart, the sound of Miles moving about distant in comparison. He doesn’t have much to say. “Okay.”

“I’ll probably take a nap when I’m back home, too. Kinda didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

“You slept longer than I did,” Michael points out, shaking his head as Miles starts searching around the room for his socks.

Miles goes down on his knees and holds himself up on a forearm, head halfway under Michael’s bed, his free hand patting around the floor underneath the bed blindly. “Yeah but I need some serious Z time. I’m a growing boy, you know.”

Michael snorts. “You’re like six-foot- _whatever_ and twenty-one, how much growing do you think you have left?”

There’s something in Miles’s hand as he raises back up, staring up at Michael with a smug smile on his face. “Are you asking because you want to know when you’re going to get taller? It’s okay, Michael, you’re average. People in Texas just come in bigger sizes than they do in New Jersey.”

“Fuck you.”

“Nice one,” Miles laughs with his head down, moving from his knees onto his ass. He pulls his socks on while going on, excessively talkative, “How old are you? Twenty-three?”

“Twenty-four in July,” he says before sitting on the bed, feeling a bit foolish about standing around with nothing to do with his hands while Miles is on the floor. His ass doesn’t actually sting anymore and he doesn’t know if he should tell Miles or not. Was he trying to make it last?

“ _Right_ , so twenty-three,” Miles laughs, not exactly patronizing but not _not_ patronizing. “You’re still growing, too. Maybe by the time you’re thirty you’ll catch up. I mean, you’re just a few inches off from me, right? Sure, it seems like more, but you’re not a fucking leprechaun, you know. You’ll get there.” There’s a beat where Michael imagines two puzzle pieces slotting together in Miles’s brain, then: “Aw, _shit_ , I should’ve checked for Lucky Charms earlier. I’m really craving those marshmallow bits now, man, they’re the best part. Do you think Jack would understand if I asked him to stop at the store for a quick cereal run?”

He shakes his head. He doesn’t know how they got to this line of conversation, but he doesn’t exactly mind it. He’d listen to Miles talk about anything. 

Miles nods morosely as he stands, shoes in hand before setting them down next to Michael on the bed. “No, no, you’re totally right. He wouldn’t understand. Only a man with real taste and class would understand how important it is to eat that good shit in the morning. You understand me, right, Michael?”

Michael stares at Miles. “Absolutely not.”

Miles laughs, makes a _well-what-can-you-expect_ face, and shrugs. “Okay, fair enough. I see I’m just more evolved than the rest of you. This is my fate, I guess; living in a soul-crushing isolation for the rest of my life until everyone else catches up with my superior thinking. I’ll wait for you, Michael,” he says as sincerely as one can say something while talking about cereal. 

His hand goes to the side of Michael’s head then, fingers brushing through the curls there. He’s not exactly petting Michael, but the way Michael turns his head and presses up into Miles’s palm like a cat almost makes it so. Michael hums, all honeyed and warm, and shuts his eyes.

“I gotta go now,” Miles tells him softly, voice not much louder than a whisper. He curls his fingers in Michael’s hair, scratching lightly, and Michael blinks his eyes open to stare up at Miles.

“Okay.” 

Miles is silent for a moment, just watching Michael watch him. He doesn’t say anything else, but Michael feels like there’s supposed to be something else said here. A sigh, a step back, and then Miles is sliding on his shoes.

He turns and starts heading out the bedroom door and Michael follows a few paces behind without even thinking about it. Jack is waiting by the front door, phone in hand, and he glances up when Miles clears his throat.

“You ready to go now?” Jack asks, turning his keys over in one hand while pocketing his phone with the other.

“Yep. You know where my apartment is?”

Jack laughs, shaking his head. “Nah, man, I don’t keep up with every intern’s home address. C’mon, you’ll have to feed me directions as we go.”

Jack heads out the door and Miles turn toward Michael, a look about him that makes him seem nervous.

“Hey, uh… I’ll call you, okay?” Miles asks while fixing the back of one of his shoes, one hand braced against the wall to keep himself balanced.

“Sure.”

“Don’t be weird,” Miles says as he straightens up, shoes both on properly now, and grabs the edge of the door, Jack having left it open behind himself for Miles to follow.

“I won’t,” Michael promises with Miles’s other hand in his face, pointing at him accusingly.

Miles looks out the door, checking on something perhaps, and then he’s letting go of the door and stepping towards Michael. His hand swoops down low to grab at the love handle of Michael’s hip, slow like he doesn’t want to rush any of this, and he kisses him.

And everything is different.

Just like with their first kiss — in a crowded car, the cloak of humor shielding them from thinking too hard about what they were doing, the innocence in their bumping noses and flushed cheeks, the fumbling of hands and hitching breaths, some parts awkward and some parts so uniquely aweing that it sends Michael’s head spinning when he thinks about it — this one thrusts everything into the light and now things are capital D Different and new in a way things just simply weren’t before.

It’s not like they haven’t kissed before, but the feeling is different. Not sexual or domestic, just… a kiss. A simple, regular, walking-out-the-door kiss.

Miles doesn’t take up his time with it or string him along like he tends to do. He kisses Michael and it’s just enough that Michael forgets all about everything. Forgets to think about anything other than this right here, this goodbye kiss filled with hope and all of the earnestness in Miles’s heart. And Miles is nothing if not an optimist.

Michael doesn’t even have time to fully appreciate it before Miles pulls away. 

Miles clears his throat, removes his hand, steps back, and there’s something about it that reads as flustered, formal in a way that contrasts harshly with everything they’ve done here. Something almost embarrassed about it. Michael’s heart is skipping, repeating, unable to go back to normal as he reaches up and covers his lips with two fingers.

“Well, uh,” Miles rasps as he touches above his ear, voice heavy somehow from only a walking-out-the-door kiss, “I’ll be seeing you.”

He turns and ducks out of the apartment, door closing softly behind him, every bit of light and warmth leaving with him like the sun’s gone down. Michael’s still touching his lips, heart no longer with him.

And that’s that. The night’s over, easy. Bite marks, hickeys, and Michael’s heart fading and fading until, eventually, they’re nothing more than a memory. 

And that’s the last time Michael talks to Miles without a knot in his throat for five years.


End file.
